The Season

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Not next to May, our present Duchess of Wokingham. Now there was a beauty if ever there was one. Is she come to London yet, by the by?’

  ‘She is to arrive tomorrow, with her son. She has promised that they will be at their London address from noon, so we must both call, must we not, in the afternoon? The Duke joins them at the end of next week. London holds no interest for him nowadays, as it does not for men of country interests. He only really comes, she says in her last letter to me, to have himself fitted for new hunting boots, and such matters.’

  The footman holding out the silver dish for Emily suddenly seemed unreasonably handsome, and the room in which they sat entirely heavenly. Emily very nearly leaped from her chair and started a bad imitation of a tango, such was her sudden feeling of joy in life, the sensation, which she had not experienced for years, of being yards younger than she knew herself to be, of being part of that hidden warmth which brought about spring.

  ‘Yes, I will call with you. We can call together,’ she agreed.

  * * *

  May was ready and waiting for them when they made their afternoon call the following day, and since she had arrived in London only a few hours before, and it seemed equally few others knew it, Portia and Emily were able to find their old friend, at first, quite alone, and this despite it being Thursday, which would normally be the Duchess of Wokingham’s At Home day, when all the world, not to mention many of its wives, would be clambering past her steward and into her long narrow first floor drawing room overlooking Hyde Park.

  ‘We are not in the least bit surprised to find you looking younger than ever, May, my dear!’ Emily joked, kissing her old friend on both cheeks, and holding out her hands to show May off to Portia who was still standing behind her at the entrance to the drawing room. ‘I mean, look, Portia! She is disgraceful, is she not? How can you manage to be married for so long and stay looking as though the bells are still pealing out their celebrations? And where is your beautiful son, of whom we have heard so much? Where are you hiding him?’

  It was May’s turn to blush. She had lost her battle to bring her son to town, and he would even now, she knew, be riding out in the company of his father the Duke, both of them doubtless congratulating each other on having escaped an extra week in London.

  ‘George is coming to London next week, with his father. He stayed behind to help him on the estate.’

  At this both Emily’s and Portia’s faces fell, as well they might, seeing that they were both the mothers of daughters, and May was the mother of a son of more or less the same age who must, as the whole world knew, since he was the heir to a dukedom, be both handsome and good company, not to mention elegant and charming.

  ‘Boys, you know. They never want to come to London as much as daughters, I’m afraid.’

  May shrugged her shoulders lightly, and tried not to look apologetic. After all she had not promised to bring George to town. She had said that she would, but she had not promised that he would be coming with her, although looking at her two old friends’ faces she was sure that they must have counted on the young Marquis of Cordrey for an eligible addition to the ball that was to be given at Tradescant House in a fortnight’s time.

  ‘He is coming, of course. On Sunday night next.’ May was busking it, as they would have called it backstage when she was a young actress. ‘Yes, George is coming,’ she added with more firmness than she felt, and at the same time she made a mental note to insist that her eldest son came to London on just that particular day, no matter what his father had to say on the matter. They must both come to London, and in good time to appear at the ball at Tradescant House. Not to do so would offend her dear friend Portia Childhays, a widow, a woman bringing out a daughter without a husband to support her, only an eccentric aunt to help her, which must be terrible. No, George must appear at the ball, no matter what.

  There followed a slight pause in the proceedings, as must always follow a moment when no-one quite knows whether or not to believe in the preceding conversation.

  ‘I was fitted in Paris, in February, for the Season, although the fashions are becoming a little too fantastical for my taste,’ May murmured, as if to reassure her two friends that despite the rather old-fashioned attire she was at present sporting she was more prepared for the Season than they might have deduced from her afternoon dress – which, although a bit of an old favourite, nevertheless lacked immediacy.

  After a short time during which they all sought to pick up the threads of their very different lives over the intervening years, footmen appeared with trays of silver upon which rested gold-rimmed teacups, and the vast London drawing room suddenly became a place of entertainment. Without much prompting, for it seemed as if from unseen sources they had been told that the Duchess was At Home, friends and relatives began to call. The clatter of hats and canes being placed in the corner of the room was followed by the murmur of greetings, and May moved backwards and forwards, lightly and gracefully, receiving, introducing, waving prettily.

  And all the while Emily watched her with a slight degree of envy.

  May had always been the most beautiful of the three of them, and it had been no surprise to either Portia or herself that she had captured a future duke. And not just a future duke, but the whole of London Society, who it had to be faced dearly loved both beauty and charm. And since May had both, she now made a delightful duchess.

  And, moreover, which was strange indeed considering the undoubted licence of the age, and the myriad follies and temptations of Society, if rumour were correct the Duke had remained faithful to his Duchess for all their married life, which, when all was said and done, expressed even more about the Duchess of Wokingham and her undoubted charms, both domestic and otherwise, than a thousand compliments to her beauty. To keep a duke tamed and happy was some feat, and everyone in London Society knew it, and, doubtless, envied it.

  ‘Why do you sigh, Lady Emily O’Connor? Are you sad? You cannot be sad, not for a minute, I shall not allow it.’

  ‘Who knows me? Do I know you, sir?’

  The young man smiled as Emily turned. ‘You would not know me, but I do know you. I have followed you on horseback over many a mile, Lady Emily. Captain Fortescue, Barrymore Fortescue – my friends call me Barry. I was named after my godfather, Lord Barrymore, a neighbour of your father’s in Ireland, you will remember?’

  As the dark head bent low over her gloved hand Emily felt a shiver of excitement zipping through her, but since she did not approve of such emotions in herself she said sternly, to the still bent head, ‘I do not know you, young man. I know whom I know, believe me, and I do not know you.’

  ‘No.’ The young man straightened up, and his dark eyes gave every impression of glowing with admiration. ‘As I said, you would not know me. I have only seen you out hunting, in Ireland. But to have seen you once is enough to make an everlasting impression, believe me, Lady Emily. Never since the Empress of Austria have I seen such a seat on a horse. You are not just elegance personified, Lady Emily, you are daring, you are Diana, you are a goddess on horseback.’

  Happily for both of them, but most particularly for herself, Emily was well used to being praised for her seat on her horse. She knew herself to be a good horsewoman, although to be compared to the Empress of Austria was somewhat galling because, as she had gathered from her late father, the Empress, although dashing in the field, and gathering the admiration of everyone, was known to be daring to the point of foolhardiness, which Emily would never be.

  Emily, being Irish, valued her horses far too much to ever risk them over some unsurmountable object, or to jump them blind, or any such nonsense. To Emily her horses were her friends, and she could not, would not, ever endanger them in order to hear the gasps of the throng behind, or be the toast of Leicestershire for leppin’ the unleppable, as their old groom would have it.

  ‘Captain Fortescue, may I deduce at least that you have had a few days out with the Galway Blazers?’

  ‘I certainly
have, Lady Emily, and nearer to home I remember that you came over one year to Leicestershire, it must be four years ago? You were staying with the Ashley Montagues, as I remember it, for a fortnight’s hunting. You rode an unrideable horse – a great iron grey it was. I remember that very well.’

  ‘My, my, my, Captain Fortescue, you are not the only one to remember that horse, I remember him too, one Jehu by name, and that was what he thought himself at the time too, a god! Dear me, he thought he was the finest thing out, that horse. The conceit of him!’

  The young captain’s voice almost trembled with respect as he recalled, ‘He was due to be shot as unrideable, and you arrived, and after only a day he was as tame as a canary in a cage. He was beautiful, and so were you, and what a sight you were together!’

  Emily laughed suddenly at the memory. ‘Ah, he was a gentle old thing, once you got to the heart of him. Just pretending what he did not feel, really, as so many big horses do, Captain Fortescue. Poor creature, it was just that he was frightened, had been frightened by some human being, somewhere, or at some time, and all he needed was someone to get up on him and tease him into remembering that he was a horse and not a god!’ Emily laughed again. ‘I had the measure of him only because I knew a horse just like him, many years before, when I was growing up at Glendarvan. Our groom, old Mikey, he brought him to my father’s stable, and before long he was trotting about with all the young on his back for all the world as if he were a donkey on the beach at some Kerry resort. Ignorance, d’you see, Captain Fortescue, it is responsible for so much when it comes to horses. Most people, d’you see, are frightened of horses, and the bigger they are the more frightened, and you know how it is, they set about them, particularly your sex, and once you’ve set about a horse, well, there’s little to be done, really, only everything to be un-done! All that I did was to make friends with old Jehu, and he went like a lamb for me. As a matter of fact they sent him after me, after I left Leicestershire, and he is even now alive and well and last seen taking my youngest daughter Valencia for many a mile at a fast clip, God bless him, for she is a sickly child at the best of times, and when she can’t run about due to the wheezles and the sneezles, why Jehu can do it for her!’

  ‘You sound so Irish when you talk of your horses.’

  ‘I always say I was my father’s second head groom, after Mikey. Brought up in the stables and learned stable ways.’

  ‘And a seat on a horse such as I have never seen before, and doubtless will never see again.’

  The look of extreme reverence on Captain Fortescue’s face made Emily laugh a little too loudly.

  ‘I am so sorry, Captain Fortescue.’ She quickly took a handkerchief and waved it airily in front of her face. ‘It was just that—’

  He stared down at her, about to be offended.

  ‘It is just that no-one has ever complimented me quite so extravagantly before. In fact my riding is – was – a source of ridicule in my family, really, when I look back. My mother you see was far more interested in the arts and so on, and my father was blind, so he never saw me ride. So really, your effusive compliments have come as rather a shock to me, Captain Fortescue.’

  Captain Fortescue stared down solemnly into Emily’s laughing green eyes. ‘If only you would ride with me, it would make me the happiest man on earth, Lady Emily. I do assure you. Just once to ride beside you, anywhere, however tame, that would make my year, my life, as a matter of fact. I have carried the image of you in your green riding habit with your beautiful face, seated on your great hunters before me, always, ever and always, and I swear that I always will, I swear it.’

  Emily dabbed lightly at her face and put her handkerchief away. Of a sudden the room seemed terribly hot, she did not know why.

  ‘Oh, come come, Captain Fortescue. You go too far now, and besides, there are other young ladies in the room, nearer your age, if I may say so, who would be deeply complimented to ride out with you in Rotten Row of a morning. I am a mother, and a wife, after all—’

  ‘No, no, you are nothing so mundane, and I shall not let you be. You will never be anything ordinary, especially not on horseback. You are a goddess, Lady Emily. I promise you, I know. My mother was killed out hunting, and died happy, I am sure, such was her love for following hounds. But you – you far outstrip her prowess, I promise you. Your elegance, your way of moulding yourself to become part of the horse, is without parallel. Above all you are lightness and grace, your hands so delicate, your seat like a feather floating on the back of your steed. Has your husband had you painted on horseback, Lady Emily? I dearly hope so.’

  ‘My husband – Mr O’Connor? No – no. He is quite a horseman himself, and besides, it would not occur to him. As a matter of fact he does not think particularly highly of my riding, at least I am not aware that he does. He has certainly never said so, not within my hearing, at any rate. He rather takes it for granted, as husbands must, I think. After all, they cannot be counted upon to be amazed every day of the year, can they?’

  Barrymore Fortescue shook his head in open amazement his eyes widening in astonishment.

  ‘If you were my wife, Lady Emily, I should have you and Jehu painted so high.’ He nodded up towards the ceiling miles above them. ‘And so wide.’ Now he nodded to indicate the breadth of the room. ‘And I should place flowers in front of my painting, and burn incense before it. If I were your husband, that is what I should do,’ he ended, reverentially.

  ‘Well, I dare say, Captain Fortescue, but since you are not we shall both just have to dream of such a painting. I assure you, it will never come to be!’

  Emily had coloured at the passion with which the young army captain had spoken of the painting, and now she made to move away, but not before Captain Fortescue leaned forward and murmured, ‘You will ride with me tomorrow, will you not? I beg of you. Just once, to ride beside you, would be more than I can tell you. It would be everything. Early in the morning? You know the place I keep my horses – two superb hacks – just near to the barracks. I expect you have hired from there when in London. Please come tomorrow. I will wait for you. I know you will love Brass Buttons especially. He is seventeen hands of chestnut muscle. I cannot wait to see you two together, and after that I shall commission a painting of you. Our secret, you know, Lady Emily, for if your husband cannot appreciate that you are a goddess on a horse, I, Barrymore Fortescue, can!’

  After which he walked off to pick up his hat and cane from the corner of the room, leaving Emily murmuring to no-one in particular, ‘But I am a married woman, I am only in London to present my daughter at Court, and so on and so forth.’

  Presently Portia moved towards her, and together they left May’s increasingly busy At Home, and returned in their smart carriages to their London addresses – Portia to Tradescant House, and Emily to Medlar House.

  Here they were undressed by their maids, and subsequently, in quite elegant if not entirely new tea gowns, lay upon their beds while their maids moved around their rooms setting out their jewellery, their hair tongs, the underclothes, and all the other appropriate requisites for the evening, while their mistresses, unbeknownst to each other, both dreamed of other times, other years, when they were the same age as their daughters.

  And both could not help realising that they were as yet not so old that love could not beckon at least one more time.

  That Portia thought often of her reluctant house guest, Richard Ward, was not entirely surprising, for although she visited him every morning he was usually still hardly awake, staring ahead of him in such a bemused fashion while one of the valets set about shaving him as to give her to realise that his ‘cure’, if it was to be effective, was still far from being achieved. And yet she was not without hope, for the servants who waited on him during the day had told her that he became more and more ‘himself’ as the day drew on, and that by nighttime he was usually far less morose, and would ask for Portia, often.

  ‘He usually asks for “Miss Tradescant”, and in a most loquaci
ous manner,’ Evie had told Portia, proudly trying out yet another new word. ‘I understand that is what is called a “time lapse”, Lady Childhays. That’s what that is, a “time lapse”. He thinks you and him, that no time has passed and you are still the same young girl as what you once were. Which is sad, really, in’tit? I mean him thinking you are both still young, as when you both sailed together, that is sad, if not pathetic, I’d say, ’cos none of us is any younger, and some of us is a lot older than what we care to think of ourselves, although London can make some of us feel younger than we thought, I will say that. So perhaps the Vice Admiral is just feeling younger because he’s here with you, in London? Could be, I will say. Anyfink is possible, in’tit?’

  Evie’s words, doomladen though they were intended to be, and which she often repeated, nevertheless gave Portia a glorious sort of feeling that she was indeed still the same age as she had been when she and Richard first sailed together at Bannerwick, Portia with her pug Henry at her feet, and Richard young and as handsome as no-one looking into his lined and red-veined face could possibly realise, alas, that he had once been.

  They had enjoyed each other’s company in those ways that are so particularly memorable, when each person has no great desire to break the splendid silence of the water and its ways with idle chatter, but will be happy only to listen to the sounds of the moorhens, or the curlews, or the kittiwakes, to the sounds of the sails creaking and moaning, as if the very effort of sailing were pulling on unseen muscles in their canvas, and they responding as people will who have not had any exercise at all of late.