This Cold Country

by Annabel Davis-Goff

  Daisy had never before been in a house that had a ballroom; she didn't imagine that many still existed. It was a ballroom that could have done with new wallpaper; the original intricately designed colors had faded not unpleasantly into a subdued blended pattern, and the curtains, long, wide, threadbare, had once, it seemed, been a rich, dark brown velvet. Daisy rather liked the yellowish tinge they had now assumed. The gold cord sashes that held the curtains back had fared less well, as had the cords of a similar material that had once held in place the tired draped velvet on the pelmet. Daisy thought Lady Nugent would have done well to have removed the frayed, sad, gold bindings—rather as she, Daisy, had freed the diamond necklace from its frame—and given the curtains a good shake. In the meantime, the reel had ended and dancers were leaving the floor. After a moment the music started again; this time a waltz. No one asked Daisy to dance; no one had spoken to her since the family had finished their coffee and entered the ballroom. Feeling conspicuous and being ignored, Daisy reflected, were trials that should not be imposed simultaneously. Even making small talk with a friendly dowager—there was no shortage of dowagers seated, as was Daisy, at the end of the ballroom and in the adjoining anteroom—would have made her situation more tenable.

  Daisy stood up; it seemed important to move with a purpose, and she drained the almost empty champagne glass that she held. She knew it was pathetic to have to fetch herself another drink, but she preferred to appear to lack a mannerly escort than to sit, smiling wanly, as the others danced. Especially since it seemed that she could remain there until the band went home without anyone even speaking to her.

  The champagne that the waiter poured for her was cooler than that she had just finished, but not really cold. It was the one thing in the chilly house that should have been colder. Although the large vases in the hall and drawing room were, thanks to Aunt Glad’s maid, filled with summer branches and tall flowers, a fire had been burning all day in the ballroom to take the damp chill off. Now, as the crush of energetically dancing bodies heated the room, it had been allowed to die down, presumably to prevent accidents caused by swirling inflammable dresses or the horseplay of drunken and overexcited young men as the evening wore on.

  Sipping her fresh champagne, Daisy strolled into the hall, her gait more casual than she felt. Several men glanced admiringly, but none of them made a move toward her. Daisy might have paused to allow one to overcome his reserve, pluck up his courage, and compose a self-introductory sentence, had not Lizzie, surrounded by admirers, been holding court close to the door. That afternoon Daisy had wondered if there had been an expedition to a local hairdresser from which she had been excluded. But at dinner she had seen that Lizzie had done her own hair; reddish and tightly curled, it looked much the same as it had at lunch, except that a fine old jeweled comb held one side off her face. Her shoulders were bare, pale, and lightly freckled; she wasn’t very pretty: on a London street she would have turned few heads. But, in some way Daisy observed but didn’t understand, the Nugents believed, and seemed to have made others believe, that they were the criterion by which all excellence was measured.

  Daisy kept moving and, since she was reluctant to double back to the ballroom, she found herself ascending the staircase. As she went, she glanced back at Lizzie. Lizzie’s dress was very pretty: limp, pale satin, the plain white bodice suspended by narrow straps over her thin shoulders, the color gradually, almost imperceptibly, becoming a warm pink and then, as the smooth line of the dress became an undramatic ruffle about eight inches above the ankle, a shade of deep, but not dark, raspberry. She wore it casually. Daisy’s dress, too, was pretty and probably had cost as much as Lizzie’s had, but she wore it as though it were—as it had been—borrowed. How had all the Nugents developed this impressive, almost shocking, level of self-assurance? Lizzie was only eighteen years old. And why did no one seem to question this superiority?

  Halfway up the staircase there was a landing lit, during the day, by a large window that overlooked a shrubbery. It had stained glass borders and an ornate carved frame. To one side of the window, the landing extended into a small sitting room with another window, a fireplace, a small sofa, and two boudoir-sized armchairs. It was here that Daisy thought she might sit for a few minutes before again going downstairs.

  The fire was blazing cheerfully, but the room was not empty. Although Daisy did not crave solitude, neither did she wish to act as a chaperone to the adolescent couple on the sofa. As she entered the little doorless room, they separated. The girl’s hair was untidy and her lipstick almost completely rubbed off. The boy’s face, now turned enquiringly toward Daisy, was flushed. Daisy, no expert in these matters, thought the flush a combination of drink and sexual arousal.

  Daisy smiled vaguely and withdrew; she continued up the staircase and along the corridor to her room, thinking that she might as well use her own bathroom, apply fresh lipstick, and see how her hair was holding up. And blow her nose; the threatened cold had not yet arrived, but it was on its way and Daisy’s insubstantial dress had no pocket for a handkerchief.

  Once inside the bedroom door, however, she sat down in the solitary armchair beside the unlit fireplace and considered her situation. It was already becoming chilly in her bedroom and after a moment or two she unhooked her dress, put her dressing gown on over her underclothes and stockings, tucked a fresh handkerchief into the pocket, switched off the light, made her way carefully across the dark room, and slipped under the eiderdown. She laid her head down carefully on the pillow, since she assumed she would, a little later, dress again and go downstairs.

  Lying back and gazing upward into the darkness, Daisy tried not to weep. The last time she’d cried had been Christmas morning when her chilblain had burst. Then she had wept, not over a man, not over a slight, but from physical misery and pain. Her more than slightly puritanical streak—integral to her nature, not the influence of her father—considered the suffering of others to be the only proper reason to weep.

  Her primary feeling during the day now drawing to a close had been one of embarrassment. Good nature, common sense, and a rectory upbringing had served her well since she had left home and joined the Land Army. Although she knew James had behaved badly, and the Nugents, aristocratic or not, had been unmannerly and inhospitable, she was not sure to what extent she was, if not to blame, responsible for what was clearly a misunderstanding.

  Slowly and methodically she went over every moment of the afternoon she had met James, the invitation and letter from his mother, her conversation with Rosemary, her own conduct, limited conversational opportunities, and the way she had dressed since arriving at Bannock House. She found no clue and was once more embarrassed. Embarrassed and disappointed. It seemed a waste of saved money and days off. Daisy quickly nipped this self-pitying thought in the bud; again, while it might have pleased her father to think that her behavior had been guided by his precepts, more often it was Daisy’s wish to avoid some of the more egregious lapses of his parishioners. She checked her tears with the memory of Mrs. Hill, who was in the habit of making a perfectly legitimate complaint about some slight or disappointment and then diminishing the sympathy of her listener with some additional details along the lines of: “I took the 8:10 to King’s Cross, three and fourpence round trip, and when I got there she wasn’t even...” Daisy knew that the three shillings and fourpence was probably quite a lot of money to Mrs. Hill and didn’t quite understand why she, Daisy, despised her for making it part of the complaint. She just knew it was awful.

  After lunch that day, when James had not returned, and she knew that something had gone very wrong with the visit, Daisy had thought about leaving Bannock House. Had the railway station been closer, she might have packed her bags, carried them to the station, and taken her chances on catching a train and making a connection that would take her back to Wales. But this simple if unambiguous course of action was not possible; she would have had to ask for transport and that would have forced a conversation that no one wante
d. And a premature return would have been awkward to explain to Rosemary when she arrived at Aberneth Farm. Her affection and respect for her employer, who was related to this cold family, was an inhibiting and deciding factor in Daisy’s decision to stick it out.

  It was profoundly, uncompromisingly dark in the bedroom; Daisy’s watch was on the dressing table and she had no idea what time it was. It felt a little after ten o’clock. She put her hands behind her neck and made a plan. Ten o’clock and her train left at quarter to eleven the next morning; were she Cinderella there would be time enough to change her life but, since her expectations were fewer and more mundane, it was merely a manageable number of hours. She would lie there for a while and in an hour or so either she would undress completely, brush her teeth, and go to bed properly or she would put on her dress, return to the dance—very faint sounds of music from below alternated with the silence—circulate for a few minutes, drink another glass of champagne, return to her bedroom and then go to bed. Breakfast the following morning, she imagined, would be a subdued affair—the Nugents silently shoveling down quantities of bacon and eggs, strong tea, and nursing hangovers, except, perhaps, for Lizzie, who might be radiant, triumphant, even in love—and she was quite sure that her one need, a pony and trap to take her to the railway station, would have been anticipated.

  After a little while it became quite cozy under the eiderdown. Daisy told herself there would be other opportunities; her complete failure that weekend did not guarantee a lonely old age. Except for what she read in the final pages of novels, Daisy had no examples of what she did want; she knew she did not want to be an old maid or a lonely and defeated wife. The war had given the girls in her generation more freedom than ever before in the history of English womanhood, but it threatened a whole generation of young men. Innocent and twenty, Daisy was prepared to be a young widow but she was not prepared to submit to a life of utter and hopeless dreariness.

  There was a tap at the door. Daisy did not know how long she had been in her room; she would have guessed three-quarters of an hour.

  “Who is it?” she called a little awkwardly. Taps at the door were not part of her plan.

  “It’s Patrick.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to open the door.”

  “It’s not locked.”

  “I’d still like you to come to the door.” His voice was slightly testy.

  “Just a minute.”

  Daisy got out of bed, pulled her dressing gown modestly around her, belted it, crossed the pitch-dark room, and opened the door. Patrick stood outside. There was a short awkward silence.

  “I had a headache. I was lying down for a moment.”

  “Oh, I thought perhaps you were sulking.”

  “I never sulk,” Daisy said coldly and very nearly truthfully. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to put your dress on and come back downstairs.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to talk to you and then, depending on how it goes, we might dance.”

  “I don’t need to put my dress on again to talk,” Daisy said, not feeling obliged to make it easy for him.

  “Yes, you do. We can’t stand like this in the corridor—of course, if you wait until I find a maid or someone’s aunt as a chaperone, I could come and talk in your room. Better put your dress on.”

  Daisy looked at him coldly for another moment, then nodded and closed the door. Without hurrying, she went into the bathroom and arranged her hair and powdered her face. Then she brushed her teeth and put on fresh lipstick. She rolled her stockings, which had become a little baggy at the ankles and knees, straightened the seams, and made them taut, reattaching them to her suspender belt. Then she put on her dress, stepped into her shoes, and joined Patrick in the corridor.

  “You might just do up the two hooks at the top,” she said, turning her back to him.

  He was, as she had imagined he would be, a little clumsy with the tiny hooks and eyes. The lighting in the corridor was dim and she suspected he made himself slower in his desire not to be found doing up her dress by someone coming upstairs. But they met no one until they were halfway down the staircase. Then, a neatly uniformed middle-aged woman carrying a salver with empty glasses came out of the little sitting room off the stairs. She bobbed her head to Patrick; the gesture, Daisy thought, some kind of racial memory of a curtsy.

  “Mrs. Parsons,” Patrick said. “The very woman I was looking for. Could you bring us up a couple of glasses of champagne.”

  The woman nodded and hurried away before Daisy had a chance to tell Patrick that the little sitting room might not be the ideal place for a quiet talk. He entered confidently, Daisy trailing a little behind him.

  “Ah,” he said, apparently pleased to see the young couple. Daisy noticed they were rather more disheveled than when she had last seen them. Patrick apparently noticed nothing.

  “Lady Nugent is keen to set up a bridge table in here. I wonder if you would be interested in making up a four.”

  As soon as they left, Patrick gestured toward the sofa just vacated, and Daisy sat down. The cushions were still warm. Patrick sat in the small armchair on the other side of the fire. It was not quite large enough for him and he sat forward in it, resting his arms on his knees and looking at her.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I told you—I had a headache and I thought I would lie down until the aspirin started to work.”

  He looked at her silently, not bothering to voice his disbelief. Daisy said nothing; she had no intention of appearing defensive.

  “Lover’s tiff?” he asked after a moment.

  “No. I don’t have a lover and apart from the words you and I exchanged this afternoon, I haven’t had a tiff with anyone in this house.”

  “I can’t help noticing that you and James seem—well, I haven’t seen you exchange a word all day.”

  “Except for Mrs. Glynne, no one has had much to say to me all day. And nobody has spoken a single word to me since the dance began.”

  “I would have asked you, you know. As soon as I had taken care of a couple of duty dances.” And then, as Daisy said nothing, he added, “Your dress is very pretty.”

  “It belongs to Rosemary.”

  “I wondered—”

  Daisy raised her eyebrows, ready to be indignant or offended all over again. Patrick laughed.

  “Don’t look like that—your dress is pretty; it suits you perfectly and it has a look of Rosemary. It also clearly was expensive, but not like a major investment for, say, a coming-out dance.”

  Daisy nodded. Patrick was right; the dress was the choice of a young married woman with good taste, not what one of the dowagers might have ordered from a couturier for a seventeen-year-old girl. She wasn’t sure what material it was made of, but it felt silky; it looked as though thousands of tiny diamond-shaped snippets had been attached to one another to make the fabric. Each diamond contained a pale green, white, and pale pink. Daisy could not decide if the pattern suggested Columbine or Lamia.

  “And I’m not saying it’s too old for you,” Patrick added. “As always, Rosemary got it just right.”

  “Rosemary thought it all right for me to come and stay here—I asked her.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course: not only if I could take the time off—I do work for her after all—but when Lady Nugent sent the invitation and asked me to stay, I asked how she felt about me accepting; all of you being relatives and in-laws of hers and George’s.”

  “Aunt Hilda wrote and invited you to stay?”

  “If you thought I was a gatecrasher, it goes a good distance toward me understanding why you have been so unpleasant,” Daisy said, but her heart wasn’t in it. She suspected there had been a misunderstanding although she could not imagine what it might be.

  “Last night, when I went up to bed, I saw James coming out of your room.”

  “So you assumed he had been there by my invitation,” Daisy sai
d flatly, hurt and this time deciding not to let him off lightly. “And even if he had been, is that a good enough reason for the way everyone has treated me today? What did you think when James disappeared for the day and when he didn’t speak a word to me at dinner?”

  “I didn’t—” Before Patrick could continue, Lizzie came into the little sitting room, slightly ahead of a young man with a flushed face, who held the hand she extended behind her. Both were laughing; Lizzie saw Daisy and Patrick first and stopped in her tracks. She stopped laughing and her companion, slightly behind her both geographically and in awareness of the room’s other occupants, stopped abruptly on her heels. For once, Daisy saw a Nugent at a momentary disadvantage.

  “Oh,” Lizzie said, recovering herself. “We were looking for—”

  “He’s downstairs. In the hall.” Patrick said, cutting in on her hesitation, a not entirely warm smile on his lips.

  “Oh,” Lizzie said, suddenly looking very young. Then, with an irritated glance at her companion, whose hand she still held. “Come on, Ian.”