by Sara Seale
II
Each day Lou awakened to the small luxury of early morning tea, curtains drawn back by a maid, and all the unfamiliar attentions which she herself had never known but which for the Chaileys were presumably commonplace. Sometimes Melissa would come and share the tea, sitting on the bed while she smoked her endless cigarettes, lovely even in the cold early light, with her hair still fastened up in pin-curls and her young face shining from last night’s cream.
There had never been any opportunity for the two girls to become intimate, neither, thought Lou, would Melissa have shown much interest in the rather dull little cousin who could not be expected to share in her own conception of what constituted a good time, but Lou had admired and been humble at so much careless perfection. Watching Melissa now, and listening to accounts of parties, admirers, and the latest fashions, Lou sometimes wondered if her cousin merely wanted to impress or whether there was something on her mind which she wished to unload on to someone who was outside her usual run of intimates. If this last were true, Melissa certainly never got around to unburdening herself, and indeed, thought Lou, what could possibly be amiss in such an advantageous marriage to a man who, for so long, had been a prize just out of reach? She said as much on one occasion and was abashed by her cousin’s rather cynical response.
“Oh, yes, he’s a catch all right,” she replied. “Blanche played her cards very well—all the same, she would find herself in the soup if I ratted, wouldn’t she?”
“Ratted? You mean if you found you didn’t want to marry him, after all? But surely—”
“Surely my happiness would come first with my mother, you were going to say, weren’t you? Well, darling, the financial angle might be a bit tricky, mightn’t it?”
“I wasn’t going to say that, as it happens,” Lou replied. “I’d meant—surely you couldn’t have any doubts now.”
“Oh, I see. You think rather well of Piers, don’t you? Blanche said you’d fallen for him.”
“Cousin Blanche sees a lot in her imagination,” Lou retorted sharply, and Melissa raised her eyebrows.
“Blanche doesn’t imagine the obvious,” she said with faint malice. “You wouldn’t be the first to cherish an unrequited crush for our very eligible Mr. Merrick. He’s been a hard enough fish to land in all conscience.”
“That’s horrid, coming from you,” Lou said, frowning with distaste, and her cousin regarded her with amusement. Unsophisticated little Lou might cherish old-fashioned notions about romance, but she was, for all her mousiness, unafraid to speak her mind.
“In bad taste, you think?” Melissa countered with a slight drawl. “You’re probably right; still and all—”
“Melissa—” Lou said tentatively as her cousin broke off, “if you have doubts—well, what did you mean when you said Cousin Blanche would find herself in the soup if you ratted?”
Melissa lit another cigarette and inhaled too quickly, making her cough.
“You must know the financial set-up by now, my dear. The other bridesmaids will scarcely have been very reticent,” she observed coolly, and Lou moved uneasily in the bed. The bridesmaids, and Cousin Blanche herself, as far as that went, had been devastatingly frank; all the same—
“But Piers—” she began stubbornly. “He must be—he must be very much in love with you to—bargain, if that’s what it comes to.”
“You put it very tactfully, darling Lou, but Piers’ emotions have remained undisturbed for years, I should imagine. Having sown his wild oats, as the saying is, he feels the need for settling down, and what better choice could he have than the daughter of the woman who should have been his stepmother?”
“Righting an old wrong, you mean?”
“Hardly that corny old chestnut! Getting his own back, more likely. He knows very well what a bitter pill it was to Blanche that she didn’t wait long enough .for that inheritance to come along. He was devoted to his father, you know, and had quite a thing about Blanche too, I believe. Why do you look so startled, Lou—or are you merely disapproving?”
“Not dis-disapproving,” Lou stammered. “I just don’t understand.”
“No, you probably wouldn’t—I’m not sure I do myself. There must be a streak of the romantic in Piers all mixed up with cocking snooks at Blanche—or maybe Blanche is just good at emotional blackmail. What do you think?”
Lou privately thought that the slightly alarming Piers Merrick kept his romantic streak well hidden, if indeed he possessed one, neither had he appeared to her as a man to be swayed by blackmail, emotional or otherwise, but Melissa’s approach to her coming marriage disturbed her rather more than the unknown sensibilities of the bridegroom.
“It’s not my concern, is it?” she said at last. “Only—”
“Only what? The world well lost for love, you’re thinking? But I like my love well gilded, darling, the fabulous wedding, the equally fabulous honeymoon, and after that—”
“After that,” said Lou with unaccustomed asperity, “life on a small island with both of you cut down to size.”
Her cousin looked at her with passing surprise. “How very perceptive of you, darling,” she observed, “But you don’t imagine, do you, that I’m prepared to cut myself off from civilization on Piers’ impossible island?”
“I understand the island is very much part of his background between travels.”
“A fad—a gimmick. Who but Piers could afford, anyway, to buy an island off the Cornish coast, much less staff it and play king of the castle when the mood takes him? Oh, no, my child, once we’re safely married Piers will sell his island and buy one of those so-called stately homes within reasonable distance of town. That and the London flat and the moor he rents each year for the grouse season will do very nicely for preventing us both from getting bored with each other.”
Lou was used by now to her cousin’s quite understandable little bursts of showing off, but she had, all at once, a sense of foreboding. Piers Merrick, she thought, was not the type of man to relinquish a cherished project for the sake of a pretty face.
“The island is, more than a gimmick. It’s a refuge,” she said.
“How should you know? He’s like all rich men who can indulge an expensive whim—crazy about it until it bores him.”
“I think the island is more than that—a place of escape, a sort of touchstone.”
“What nonsense you talk, impressionable Cousin Louise, but, islands are romantic, of course—in theory. Has Piers been boring you with a lot of rubbish?”
“He hardly notices me,” Lou replied gently, but remembering with an unreasoning pang of guilt the occasion of a dance she had attended, with Melissa and the other bridesmaids whose escorts politely ignored her. Piers had suddenly plucked her from the little gilt chair where she sat against the wall, and without requesting a dance, had whirled her on to the floor. They had danced in complete silence, and she, aware that although he danced beautifully she was as good, abandoned herself wholeheartedly to the pleasure of the moment.
“Well...” he had said when the music stopped, “you do surprise me, Cinderella.”
“Do I? But Cinderella went to the ball, too.”
“So she did—and captivated Prince Charming. You’re like thistledown, Lou, or is that just a cliché?”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t many social graces.”
“Haven’t you?” His rather disillusioned eyes were suddenly bright with amusement. “But I think you’re flirting with me—which is one of the graces.”
She had stopped dead then in the middle of the dance floor as the music started again, and looked up at him in horrified confusion.
“I wouldn’t dream ... I wouldn’t dare ...” she stammered, and he gave a short snort of laughter as he swept her back into his arms.
“No, I don’t believe you would at that,” he said, and again danced in silence, giving her an impatient little shake as she missed a step because she was nervous.
They waltzed to quick, Viennese music, and af
ter a while, couples began leaving the floor and stood around to watch, and in the end she and Piers were left dancing alone and the evening became a dream. She caught glimpses in the mirrors which lined the walls as he twisted and turned her, her white dress which had done duty too long for the few festive occasions which came her way took on a fresh grace and ebullience and she saw herself looking small and airy and unfamiliar. Cinderella, he had called her, not for the first time, and as they waltzed alone in the beam of a spotlight, she seemed caught up in a dream sequence which had no substance or reality.
There had been a small burst of applause when the music stopped, and she had become aware of Cousin Blanc e’s look of displeasure and Melissa’s amused expression of surprise. How had she known, then, that Piers’ island was important to him, that it was a refuge, an escape from the life society had thrust upon him? But she had known, without a word on the subject exchanged.
“He hardly notices me,” she had answered her cousin, and, of course, it was true; neither had he in his subsequent visits to the house, interrupting for a brief time the bustle and nervous tension of preparations for a big society wedding, neither did he, if it came to that, evince much impatience at his disturbed tete-a-tetes with his bride. Only Cousin Blanche, as the busy days flew by, seemed to become more on edge, snapping at Melissa whose absences on shopping expeditions, growing longer, seemed to worry her, snapping, too, at Lou who might be considered fair game, for a display of temperament usually associated with the bride.
“Am I exceptionally stupid?” Lou asked of Jill, or Jane or Caroline, the other bridesmaids, who all looked much alike to her, and had clearly thought her of no account from the very beginning.
“No, darling, you’re just a natural butt,” Jill or Jane or Caroline answered, renewing her make-up with a practised hand. “Why do you run when you’re whistled for? The bridesmaids are only a decorative appendage to the bride.”
Yes, in your case, Lou thought without rancour, but she was the poor relation, raised to the status of decorative appendage, it was true, but expected to work for the privilege.
“Cousin Blanche seems edgy—it’s difficult to please,” she said aloud.
“Your Cousin Blanche is just plain scared that there’ll be a hitch at the last minute, darling. Melissa is causing anxiety.”
“Melissa?” But she seems calmer than anyone.”
“Very likely she has her reasons. All the same, dear Cousin Blanche would be nicely in the soup, from all accounts, if anything went wrong. Piers made a very handsome settlement, you know, and that’s already gone down the drain.”
“Well,” said Lou prosaically, firmly crushing down her own distaste for such blatant speculations, “what should go wrong? In a week they’ll be married, and Melissa is scarcely likely to throw away a brilliant match at the last moment.”
“No, I don’t think so, either, but they say history repeats itself.”
“Cousin Blanche throwing over Piers’ father, you mean?”
“Well, yes, but that was quite different, of course. Piers’ father was a comparatively poor man then, and dear Blanche thought she knew which side her bread was buttered. I’m sure Melissa does, too.”
“Yes ... yes, I expect so,” Lou replied absently, chiding herself for a sense of disappointment which she had learnt by now was old-fashioned and impracticable. The world was no longer well lost for love, and if one could know on which side one’s bread was buttered, so much the better for all concerned.
“Darling, are you a little bit impressed with the gossip writers’ dark hints about Piers?” Jill or Jane or Caroline enquired with idle curiosity.
“I don’t read the gossip columns,” Lou replied, fearing she sounded prim, and added with innocent enquiry, “What dark hints?”
“Oh, the usual. A modern rake, a young man given to extravagant whims, a young man who has lived his life and been pursued unavailingly—not that Piers is so young at that—he must be well on in the thirties. That wouldn’t worry me, though he’s quite a dish, don’t you think? And imagine all that gorgeous lolly!”
“A dish?” Lou knew, of course, what that meant, but the social insincerities of the age jarred her. God bless, they said, without stopping to think. Take care of yourself, they said, not really minding. A blessing came, perhaps, as no harm to anyone, but who would take care of you if you didn’t do that for yourself? It was all so glib.
The bridesmaid whose name she, could never remember was looking at her with resignation.
“An attraction, a prize, a feather worth having in one’s cap,” she said. “Things do have to be explained to you in words of one syllable, don’t they, sweetie? We’ve all thought he made your girlish heart flutter a little.”
“Have you? Then that was rather foolish,” Lou replied coldly. “Because I haven’t had the same chances in life as the rest of you there’s no reason—no reason at all why—”
“For crying out loud!” exclaimed the first or second or third bridesmaid in amazement, as Lou rushed suddenly from the room.
III
The last week drew to its hectic close, and Lou, despite the endless chores which fell to her lot and the increasing hysteria which seemed to be mounting in the people surrounding her, knew sharp regret that these brief weeks of extravagance were coming to an end. They had been a glimpse of storybook existence, a period of color, and excitement that would be remembered with gratitude when her own humdrum life was resumed and the office and the digs she shared with more ordinary mortals would bring her down to earth again. No matter that the house and servants were hired for the occasion, that Cousin Blanche’s extravagant mode of living was no more than a whistling in the dark, no matter, again, that Melissa’s romance, such a nine days’ wonder, was no more than a union of mutual convenience with, from Blanche Chailey’s point of view, a great deal of money at stake. It was still all a modern fairy tale, a dream-like, insubstantial snippet of life only gleaned at second hand, a life, when all was said and done, that would be very hard for the humble to live up to.
Here they were at last on the eve of the wedding, with rain pouring down unkindly from the November sky with no promise of relenting for the morrow. The bridesmaids were all assembled for a final fitting of their dresses, the doorbell rang incessantly, also the telephone, the vast double drawing room was already cleared for the reception and in the hands of the caterers, and Blanche moved restlessly from one room to another, countermanding orders, snapping irritably at all and sundry, bewailing the weather and her daughter’s unaccountable absence alike.
“Where is Melissa?” she demanded for the twentieth time. “She knows there’s a final rehearsal this afternoon, and anyway she should be resting.”
“She went out early. I think she was going to church,” Lou said, trying to sound soothing, but her cousin merely laughed derisively.
“If she told you that, Lou, then she thinks you’re a bigger fool than I took you for,” she retorted, but Lou’s widely spaced eyes simply grew wider in genuine puzzlement.
“I don’t understand. It seemed to me very natural that Melissa should wish to go to church alone,” she said gently, but Cousin Blanche favored her with a look of impatience which bordered on dislike.
“I daresay it does,” she snapped. “But to my knowledge Melissa has never before shown desire to beg a blessing on any of her projects. Why should she now?”
“Marriage is a little different. One would want to ask a blessing for that, I think,” Lou replied gravely, then looked round quickly for the familiar expressions of surprise or ridicule on the faces of the bridesmaids, but they were all too busy admiring themselves to pay her attention, even if they had heard her. Fitters on their knees, adjusting hemlines and nipping in here and letting out there, were being harried by impractical suggestions and scoldings, tempers were running high and one little apprentice was already in tears.
Cousin Blanche had already turned away to restore order with a few pungent sentences, and Lou crosse
d to one of the mirrors to study her own reflection in comparative peace. The dresses were charming, she thought, discovering with faint wonder what the cunningly cut moss green velvet sheath did for herself. She was the youngest, and by far the most slender of all the bridesmaids, and the dress seemed fashioned, she thought, with herself in mind. The image in the mirror seemed for a moment that of a stranger. The color was complementary to her own muted tones, and the soft, slender lines kind to her sharp young bones. I look almost pretty, she thought with pleasure, then her cousin’s voice observed behind her:
“For heaven’s sake, Lou, why won’t you let them do something about your hair: You’ll be the only one with a head not properly dressed. I can still get an appointment for you.” Blanche, accustomed to the beehives, back-combings and lacquered elegance of current fashion, found Lou’s smooth, adolescent head an affront. Those little wreaths, so carefully chosen, so very cute and clever, would look nothing without the proper build-up. Really, the child was too tiresome!
“No, no, madame, mademoiselle is quite right!” The head fitter’s voice broke in, and she began giving deft twitches to the shoulders and, long tight sleeves, smiling over Lou’s head as she did so. “The simplicity is right for the gown, that straight, soft fall of hair, the little fringe—it is right and charming. A wood nymph, perhaps, would you say?”
“I would say you’re putting a lot of silly nonsense into the child’s head,” Blanche replied tartly. “Wood nymph, indeed! Well, she’ll scarcely be noticed amongst the others, so I don’t suppose it matters.”
When she was out of hearing the fitter whispered angrily:
“Do not heed her, mademoiselle. She is annoyed because she knows that you alone can wear this gown with grace.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Lou replied with honest surprise. “Anyway, I shall never wear it again, I don’t suppose. It would be too grand for the sort of life I lead.”
“What a pity,” the woman remarked, but the look she gave Lou was suddenly curious and faintly ironic, and Lou realized in a moment of embarrassment that Cousin Blanche had not fooled her at all. The cost of the wedding and the fabulous trousseau might impress the credulous, but it was evidently common knowledge that the wealthy bridegroom would have to meet the bills.
