The Season

by Charlotte Bingham

  As Jenkins slipped the first of her cambric lace underpinnings over her head, Daisy realised that she was ready for the fray. She knew it as Jenkins pulled up her stockings and clipped the tops smartly into their rubber suspenders. She knew it as the first part of her dress was being prepared for her, as the second part was presented to her, as each and every garment was coming towards her, held out on sticks. Oh yes, of a sudden, Daisy knew that, undoubtedly, she was ready for another London Season.

  Unlike Daisy, Sarah Hartley Lambert was not beautiful. Sarah knew this. She had to know it; after all, it was, alas, quite obvious. Her mother had told her many, many times when she was growing up that she was not beautiful, and that she was too tall. She knew this to be a fact, in the same way that the British Empire was a fact, and she had never thought to doubt her mother’s word about either her beauty or her height.

  To make up for this unfortunate fact she had therefore decided, many years before, to pretend that she was beautiful. By pretending she had hoped to bring about what nature had not bequeathed to her at birth.

  She could at least try to walk as a beauty should walk, she could at least try to sing as a beauty might sing, she could at least try to waltz as a beauty might waltz, and, more important, amuse as well as any married woman might seek to amuse. This had been her ambition, and to date she had worked as hard as any European girl to achieve it.

  What Sarah knew she could never acquire was the English girl’s general air of faded acceptance. Being an American she had not been squashed from an early age, she had not been told that as a female she ‘simply did not count’. She was Sarah Hartley Lambert from New York, and knew that being an only daughter and heiress counted for a great deal.

  She stared at herself in the long mirror. London had come as a shock to her after Paris. Paris was so beautiful, all the boulevards smart and clean, their private hotel so very well run, and Mr Worth’s salon, although filled with the newest of the new as far as couture fashion was concerned, still able to extend the proper reverential awe towards Sarah and her mother.

  After Paris and its elegance, London seemed so small somehow, everything so near to everything else, and everyone so serious. They did not laugh or glitter as the people she had met in France had laughed, seeming somehow to glint with a kind of steely intelligence and warm appreciation of everything that was beautiful and stylish. The English accepted everything, whether it was money, the trappings of grandeur, motor cars, or horses to pull your carriage, in a calm manner, and if they did appreciate them as well as accept them, it was, alas, in silence.

  And oh the terrifying nature of an English silence!

  Sarah had, only the day before, been presented to her chaperon for the Season, the famous Countess of Evesham, an old but still stunningly beautiful woman. Brilliantly elegant, she had looked Sarah up and down, in silence, as if she was an object not a person. And when Sarah had walked across to shake her hand, as she would do in New York, or Paris, the Countess had not offered her hand but stared at Sarah, in silence, and from her, in that same silence, to Sarah’s mother, before eventually saying in a clipped tone, ‘I fink we should see dear Miss Hartley Lambert make us a courtesy, do you not agree, Mrs Hartley Lambert? I fink we must, if you do not mind? I fink a courtesy is what will be expected to a countess.’

  At which Sarah’s mother, who did not frighten easily, had said in a strangled voice, ‘Curtsy, dear, for the Countess, you know, curtsy.’

  Of course Sarah had curtsied, quite elegantly as a matter of fact, while blushing furiously at the realisation that she had, in a matter of seconds, already put not just one foot but several feet wrong. After the curtsy the Countess had inspected her.

  She had actually walked round her one way, reversed, and walked back round her again, and in the heavy silence Sarah had heard her high-heeled shoes on the polished wooden floors making the least little sound, as if her ladyship had learned to walk permanently on the balls of her feet and never, ever allowed her heels to make an unbecoming noise.

  ‘She is too tall, Mrs Hartley Lambert. You at least must know vis already, surely?’

  Poor Mama, she had turned horribly pale at that, so much so that Sarah had quite feared for her. Mama was always so dearly vulnerable when it came to any mention of her only daughter’s great height.

  ‘Her poor late papa was also tall.’

  ‘Englishmen do not, as a rule, enjoy gels as tall as vis one is. They fink tall gels make them feel, and indeed look, small. Englishmen do not like feeling and looking small. And there is anuvver fing. So many of the aristocracy have only married each uvver over the last few hundred years with the result that they have stayed really quite small. So I am very afraid vat Miss Hartley er Lambert will be just too tall for many of our small aristocrats.’

  Daisy had stared across accusingly at Mrs Hartley Lambert after this pronouncement, as if the poor woman, with all her millions, could have perhaps done something about Sarah’s height earlier in her development, and having patently failed must now take the entire blame if the girl did not have her dance card filled up and could not be found partners who came up to her shoulder, let alone matched her great height.

  ‘But Countess, I mean, we have been to Paris, we have bought all our dresses for Ascot, for everything, debutante’s white ball gowns for Sarah; all those things that you told us we might be going to need, we have bought them all.’

  ‘Yes, but I did not know ven what I know now, namely vat Miss Hartley Lambert was going to prove to be such a very tall gel. You did not let me know vis fact, and now I do know it …’ Daisy gave an imperceptible shrug of her shoulders. ‘Now I do know vis, I don’t really understand what I am expected to do, Mrs Hartley Lambert.’

  Mrs Hartley Lambert’s already paling complexion had threatened to turn quite as white as the frothing lace on the front of her blouse.

  ‘She cannot of course be allowed to carry on as previous ’Merican gels have carried on, Mrs Hartley Lambert. We want no Daisy Miller type jokes about our protégée in ve newspapers and fashionable journals, now, do we?’ Both Hartley Lamberts having looked blank at this reference to a heroine of a fashionable novel Daisy added, ‘Well never mind what I mean, but we don’t, believe me. But d’you see, if we are not very careful it might take several seasons to find the right match, and that might be tarsome, would you not say, Mrs Hartley Lambert, quite tarsome? I mean, if a gel takes too long to become engaged I always fink it is a little like a racehorse not selling straight away. She can acquire a reputation long before she reaches the racecourse – I mean the altar. There does not have to be anything wrong with her either, vat is my point. She, like ve horse that does not sell, can be simply a victim of rumour, people supposing that there is something wrong when there just is not. Just some sort of setback, however small, and there we are, saddled with what everyone around town assumes is some sort of damaged goods. It is an unfortunate fact. I have seen it time and time again. Vat is why we, in England, like to shift our debutantes, Mrs Hartley Lambert, to save them from innuendo. It is by far ve best thing, believe me.’

  Mrs Hartley Lambert found it just a little confusing to follow the Countess, yet she was quite determined, nevertheless, that she must do so. The Countess and she did after all share a common language, although ‘common’ was not a word that either of them would have wished to use. They had to find a way to understand each other. Mrs Hartley Lambert was determined on it. And now of course the very mention of ‘damaged goods’ had put Sarah’s mother into a really quite dreadful fluff. After all, ‘damaged goods’ meant the same either side of the Atlantic.

  She reddened heartily, and she fanned herself, forcibly, but still she could find nothing to say. Of a sudden the very idea that her darling Sarah might have innuendo surrounding her name was so awful that Mrs Hartley Lambert’s corsets felt too tight, and the room a great deal too hot.

  ‘If I may say so, Mrs Hartley Lambert,’ Daisy continued, ruthlessly, ‘I suggest Miss Hartley Lambert w
ill really benefit from some weeks, perhaps just a fortnight, spent with a relative of my husband’s, a Lady Devenish. She will, as it were, mould Sarah into ve right silhouette, make her less outrée, less artlessly ’Merican, without of course taking away her character. Give her some polish, if you understand me? Sarah has charm, natural charm, but now she needs patina. Lady Devenish will give her patina, although of course she cannot, alas, make her any shorter.’

  ‘By all means, by all means then, give her a patina, or two patinas, or three, whatever is necessary. But what a pity that Lady Devenish will not be able to help with the height. Are there no tall Englishmen? In America we always thought that Englishmen were tall. They have a reputation for tallness in America. Are you quite sure she could not suggest some sort of shorter shoe perhaps?’

  Daisy had shaken her head sadly. ‘No, alas. Had Sarah of course had an English nanny of the old school, as I did, she would never have grown so tall. In England our nannies like to starve the female children who are in their care on the nursery floor.’

  ‘Never say so!’

  ‘Oh yes, Mrs Hartley Lambert. Every week they are measured against their brothers, and if, most unfortunately, they are found to be growing at the same rate as their brothers the nannies at once put gin into their milk. Gin is a known cure for height, do you see? And quite effective I believe. My own nanny kept me to just the right height, and so I haff much to be grateful to her for, as you may imagine.’

  Sarah would never forget the silence that had followed this statement. And whereas she knew that her mama had not been able to follow words such as ‘outrée’ she certainly would have understood ‘gin’ as well as the next mother. Indeed, at the mere mention of it she had gasped, quite loudly, as a matter of fact.

  ‘Gin? Your girls are fed gin as babies by their nurses?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the Countess had agreed affably, seating herself as suddenly and gracefully as a floating feather on a nearby sofa and inviting Sarah to do the same by tapping lightly on a cushion nearby. ‘Oh yes, the nannies in England have always relied on gin, Mrs Hartley Lambert! And a little whiff of gas to put us to sleepies. Oh, there is no stopping them with their old fashioned remedies. And I must say, by and large, it has helped to keep our gels admirably small – and therefore admirably marriageable. The boys of course are quite different. The nannies know that they must be fed up, so that they can join the army and be tall enough to be shot at for the sake of family pride.’

  At this poor Sarah, while managing, somehow, to keep her eyes demurely downcast, had been forced to bite her lip to keep the bubble of laughter which threatened to burst out of her under control.

  ‘My, my, I must confess myself a little shocked.’

  ‘Yes, well you would be, Mrs Hartley Lambert, and I dare say you would far rather be back in New York all tidied up and cosy, with your daughter beautifully and safely married to some scion of a great English house, which is why we must be quite direct with each other at this moment.’

  ‘But this Lady Devenish, she will not I hope attempt to feed my Sarah gin, will she?’

  ‘Bless you, no! My gracious heavens, far too late for that. No, this should have been done when your Sarah was a tiny little baby. Vat is what I am trying to tell you, Mrs Hartley Lambert.’

  ‘In which case I am really rather glad she was raised in America, Countess.’

  ‘No, exactly, quite. No. My husband’s relative is all that she should be, I must tell you. I must tell you vat she will not even allow a punch bowl in the dining room, so now you know exactly what I mean about Lady Devenish’s propriety, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Mrs Hartley Lambert did at least know that punch was a fast drink given to girls by young men who wanted them to behave as it was often rumoured the maids did on their days off, so it followed that if this Lady Devenish would not hold with a punch bowl in her house then she must, when all was said and done, be on the side of the angels after all.

  ‘So I will see to it that Lady Devenish is immediately instructed to take Miss Hartley Lambert as soon as possible.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Tomorrow. But remember Lady Devenish can do everything about all things, except, alas, the poor gel’s height.’

  And so tomorrow had arrived and found Sarah as she was now, waiting for her mother’s motor car to arrive, and for her luggage boxes to be put up behind. For the chauffeur and the footman to fuss around and for mother and daughter to settle back, rugs on their knees, and trust that they would not have to change to the car following on behind before they reached their destination. For although there were motor cars all over London, Sarah’s mother, in common with all her generation, would not trust herself to only one, feeling as Queen Victoria apparently had, that the motor car was unreliable at best, and noisy and dirty at worst.

  Reaching Ascot from London did not really require a stop, but stop they did for some considerable time while chauffeurs and footmen washed the wheels of the motor cars and polished them off with rags and dusters, much as they might have washed down the legs of their horses a few years before.

  ‘We must begin as we mean to go on, dear. That is, impressively,’ Mrs Hartley Lambert told her daughter, as they sipped tea from picnic-set silver mugs as the chauffeurs busied themselves.

  ‘Yes, Mama, of course.’

  Sarah was very, very sure that this was not going to be necessary, for common sense told her, if not her mama, that if this relation of the Countess of Evesham took charge of girls it would not be in return for nothing, which meant that she was being paid, which meant in turn that really they did not need to impress her. But it was useless to tell Mama this.

  Sarah knew that her darling mother was not as sure of herself as she pretended, despite being such a very rich woman and having all the trappings that accompanied great wealth. Faced with such people as the Countess of Evesham, she seemed to diminish, showing herself to be what she really was, just a very nice woman who wanted the best for her daughter. Seeing her trying to follow sophisticated English talk had made Sarah want to take her outside the drawing room door and hug her and say, ‘Come on, Mama, let’s just go home to ’Merica, as the Countess calls it, and curl up with a good book!’

  Lady Devenish’s house was just outside Ascot, conveniently opposite the racecourse and modestly fashionable. She had, over the past years, had any number of successes with debutantes, and although there were some who nowadays made fun of her custom of making the girls in her charge laugh in time with the piano, so they could sally forth into Society with a ‘tuneful laugh’ as the saying goes, none of the husbands or relatives, nor even the servants of those same now married girls would laugh at her methods. For if there was one thing that betrayed a woman’s background more than another it was, as everyone would agree, a vulgar laugh. A girl should laugh beautifully, tunefully, and without reminding anyone of a horse or a donkey neighing in the stable.

  This afternoon she was reassuringly dressed in palest dove grey. This was particularly appealing to Mrs Hartley Lambert for ever since her interview with the Countess of Evesham the poor woman had become contused with confusions, some of them so bad that her maid had to bring her a tisane in the middle of the night, and rub her back with camphor cloths while burning lavender wafted over her bed.

  But all these worries took a back seat once she had seen the taste, elegance and near Quaker-like appearance of the decorative Lady Devenish. Grey silk with an embroidered pelisse in the same colour, palest blue beneath, and pearls of course. It was all very old-fashioned, but so reassuring, so beautifully reassuring that all fears of perhaps leaving her darling Sarah with a gorgon who would either gas her or fill her water glass surreptitiously with gin fled for ever.

  ‘You will take care of yourself, dear, will you not?’

  Sarah hugged her mama, quite tightly. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And if there is anything of which you cannot approve or feel that I would not, you must send to m
e at once, you promise?’

  Sarah nodded, determined to be brave. They had never been parted for more than a day or so before. Her relationship with her mother had always been loving and close.

  ‘Lady Devenish is waiting for me, Mama. I must go.’

  Sarah stepped up once more into the carriage and kissed her mama again. She was not to worry, and Sarah in her turn would try to do everything that Lady Devenish asked of her and more. By the end of the fortnight ‘you will find me a changed and better person, you’ll see’.

  ‘You could never be better, dear. Such is my love for you, you could never please me more than you do. You have always been my delight.’

  Sarah stepped down, the chauffeur touched his cap and the motor car moved off, turning in the short carriage drive with some difficulty before accelerating smartly off into the main highway, and so back to London.

  ‘Come, my dear Miss Hartley Lambert, and meet the other two. They are just arrived. I am sure you will all get along famously.’

  For some reason that Sarah now could not imagine, she had thought to have Lady Devenish and her instructions to herself, and so it was with some sense of nervous expectancy mixed with dread that she realised she was to share her deportment classes, her laughing practice, her Court courtesy rehearsals and her lessons at the piano with other girls.

  ‘Miss de Nugent, may I introduce Miss Hartley Lambert to you, and Miss Hartley Lambert, may I introduce Miss O’Connor? I had the honour of teaching both their mothers their Court courtesies, and indeed Miss O’Connor’s mother was one of my protégées during her first and only Season in London. Alas, she had to curtail her stay in England and return to Ireland where she happily married Mr O’Connor and has helped to run his splendid Irish estates. And Phyllis de Nugent’s mother, Lady Childhays, is an old acquaintance through her aunt, Miss Tatiana Tradescant.’