The Season

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘I – er – I am quite stuck for words, Lady Emily. Is that personage on that bench – well, I imagine that he too is somewhat – er – somewhat stuck for words too, Lady Emily!’

  ‘Not at all, Captain Fortescue. That personage, as you describe him, is fast asleep, in a drunken stupor as a matter of fact. I thought Bright Buttons might wake him up, or that he might hear us sailing over the top of him, but he did not. He is still, if you observe, seated in precisely the same position, having I would think enjoyed far too much alcohol for far too long.’

  She turned her horse towards home, laughing appreciatively at her own escapade.

  ‘I am, you see, having been brought up in the west of Ireland, quite an expert when it comes to the slump of a man with too much drink taken. A genius, in fact. Otherwise, sure, I would never have lepped the bench the way I did. But I speak too soon. Oh, dear, here comes the law!’

  The policeman, Barrymore thought, ruefully, afterwards, had not a hope, for the moment he approached her Lady Emily let out a huge and hearty sigh of relief and began a speech which she had obviously made on some other occasion, such was the fine and steady stream of words she addressed half to himself and half to the hapless officer of the law.

  ‘Oh, but, Captain Fortescue, you were so brave. And I was so frightened! I have never known Bright Buttons to behave so badly before! He must have been stung by a young bee. I always think that in May or early June the sting of young bees is so much worse. Yes, I do declare. Look, officer, would you not say that would be the mark of a bee, just there – on his hind quarters? Yes, there it is! Oh, poor, poor little horse, what a dreadful thing to happen to him, of all people. Of all horses, you know, officer, this darling one is the best behaved. And yet, see, one sting of a bee and he is off like a bolt from a gun! And jumping a bench too! I mean the nerve of him! The very nerve of him! I would not know what to do with myself if I did not know that this horse is normally an angel. More than an angel, an archangel. And the captain here, so brave in galloping after me, coming to my rescue. I do not know what I should have done had I not heard that rattle of his horse’s hooves behind me. Would I have been able to stop myself? I think not. Why, I might have ended up, just think, officer, in the Serpentine there! Swimming around, perhaps even drowned! Indeed, I might have drowned if it had not been for the two of you, so brave and so kind, coming to my rescue, willing to come to my rescue. Dear, oh my! Really, I think I might faint at the very thought of the might-have-been. Worse, the probably-would-have-been!’

  The officer of the law who had witnessed the jumping of the bench now, and, Barrymore thought, really rather understandably, of a sudden appeared to have entirely forgotten why he had approached the two equestrians whom he had found so far out of their ground in a place where only pedestrians were normally meant to be discovered. This was quite obvious from the way he was frowning, and then frowning some more, and then patting Lady Emily’s horse, and frowning yet again. For if Lady Emily had not herself drowned, it was all too obvious to Barrymore that the poor officer had been thoroughly submerged, not by water, but by words.

  So many words, such a torrent of words, that, as happens when people are found wandering after an accident, it could be that after witnessing such an escapade and being exposed to such an avalanche of verbiage the poor man had lost his memory altogether.

  Lady Emily now leaned down from her horse, and before the poor officer could say more than ‘Er um’ she kissed her gloved hand to him.

  ‘Officer, I shall always remember your kindness in coming after me, in worrying over the danger I was in. And you, I know, will always remember the terrible harm that can be caused by such a little thing as a young bee’s sting on a sunny summer morning, will you not?’

  Staring up into those great green eyes the officer stood back, nodding slowly and happily.

  ‘Why, ma’am, of course. Always. A terrible thing a bee sting, particularly a young bee, as you so wisely said, ma’am. God bless you and keep you safe.’

  ‘And you too! I am sure that we can all rest easy in our beds as long as we have policemen like you ready and eager to be of assistance to helpless women such as myself.’

  After which pious thought Lady Emily pressed her riding boot to the side of Bright Buttons, and with one more kiss of her gloved hand over her shoulder to the admiring and now utterly devoted officer, she walked off to the safer sand of Rotten Row, and so on towards the barracks and the livery stables.

  ‘Such a nice man,’ she remarked, her eyes widening and more innocent by the minute as Barrymore caught up with her. ‘So understanding. And terrible about the bee, didn’t you think? So sudden, such a thing.’

  Barrymore went to open his mouth, and then closed it again. A few minutes later he remarked in a tone that he had never known himself use before, ‘You are quite, quite wonderful. You are quite the most wonderful creature I have ever known, and I am, and shall always remain, and never will not be in love with you.’

  At this Lady Emily merely laughed, but the look in her green eyes registered that she had heard him, and – who knew – even appreciated his sincerity.

  The light from the now quite old-fashioned gas lamps that were flickering into life in the old blue and gold painted ballrooms was necessarily eerie, and Phyllis could not help shivering as she made her way down the stone and iron staircase to the lower floor. Ballrooms, like swimming pools, like boathouses, like all places built for certain kinds of enjoyments at certain times of day or night, when empty, had an echoing feeling. As if once left on their own they enjoyed some secret life, as if unseen and perhaps ghostly figures might suddenly appear to enjoy themselves, use the pool or the ballroom, or take out a boat, when the normal world had quite gone away.

  Phyllis had received a note from Richard, written on one of her mother’s cards: Meet me in the ballroom at eleven tonight. R.

  She had not expected such a note, and having not seen him for some few days, due to the exigencies of the Season, too many engagements, too many fittings for Ascot and so on, she had been more than surprised.

  And then, too, following the shock of finding the card under her favourite lawn pillow, she had felt guilty, for she knew that he had no idea who she really was, since she had never disabused him of the notion that she was not Portia, her mother, but Phyllis the daughter.

  It had been fun visiting the old tar to start with, because she was bored, and doing something wicked, like slipping in and out of the Vice Admiral’s room unbeknownst to anyone, and reading to the poor old thing while he sprawled about gradually and painfully recovering his senses, had been an adventure. Just as going to sit with her father’s mastiff, a wholly forbidden exercise, when all the servants were out, had been an adventure, but an adventure which, when you discovered that the dog would not harm a fly, rapidly became dull and eventually just silly.

  And that was the worst thing about this note: it made her feel silly. She did not want to continue reading to the old boy any more, or even to see him much again, and for a very good reason. The previous evening she had danced not once but twice with a certain young man, who had utterly and completely taken her fancy. Better than everything, he made her laugh, and she made him laugh. He was the second son of a second son, and he had a passion for sailing, and one more ball, one more dance, and, Phyllis was quite sure, he would waltz her into the conservatory and ask her to become Mrs Edwin Vessey.

  But, despite this extraordinary and desperately exciting occurrence, an occurrence that had driven everything except Edwin and his beautiful blond looks from Phyllis’s mind, she could not say no to meeting her boring beastly secret Vice, because she was afraid he might tell her mother, or Evie, or that horrid valet Evans, of her solo visits to him, when she had read to him, and let him think she was her mother.

  So here she was, standing shivering and alone and clinging to her silk shawl, his note in her pocket, and the memory of how stupid she had been all too clear in her mind.

  Of a sudden ther
e was a sound from above.

  It was the unmistakable sound of a door opening and a pair of shoes, not heavy-soled men’s shoes or boots either, coming downstairs. The footsteps were light, indeed so light that they could only belong to someone feminine. The gas lamps were still flickering into life and so it was easy for Phyllis to shrink back behind one of the large pillars and wait to see which female it might be who was coming down to the ballroom at precisely the same time as herself.

  The figure came slowly and carefully down the stairs, as if it was afraid of whom it might be about to meet.

  ‘Richard Ward? Young Richard Ward?’ a voice called out, and echoed, dully, around the old ballroom.

  Phyllis knew just who it was to whom that voice belonged, but how that person came to be there, calling for the Vice Admiral she could not imagine.

  She shrank back behind the pillar, hoping against hope that the female person in question would not come in search of Richard Ward and find her instead, which would mean that she would be forced to tell her why she, Phyllis, was also there, waiting for the same person.

  Eventually, having called a few more times, looking every now and then at her fob watch, the person in question sighed. Turning out the gas lights, one by agonising one, she left the old, blue ballroom, closed the double doors at the top of the stairs quietly, and left Phyllis below in utter and complete darkness.

  Feeling her way across the well-polished ballroom floor, bit by little bit, and then equally bit by little bit, quite agonisingly, up the staircase to those same double doors, Phyllis found herself promising God that she would rather die by her own hand than deceive anyone ever again.

  Somehow, she hardly knew how, she eventually reached her room, but only by little dashes from one doorway to another, as figures that she never realised flitted about the house at such a late hour seemed to cross and recross halls, corridors and landings. Maids, valets, someone she had not even realised was staying in the house creeping downstairs and letting himself into the dining room, obviously to help himself to the port. She saw them all. Someone else – Evie she thought – she heard scratching on her mother’s door, and she even saw that awful Evans creeping down the back stairs, obviously on his way back to the servants’ quarters, which, cramped though they were, nevertheless housed half a dozen or more men during the height of the Season.

  At last Phyllis, after what seemed to her to be a lifetime of adventures, reached her own bedroom and sitting room. Flinging herself through the doors and onto her bed, she found herself almost crying with the relief of being back where she belonged. She had no idea why that wretched Vice Admiral Ward had sent her a note, and as she lit a spill from the spill vase and set it to his horrid card, she promised herself that she would never break Society’s laws again. She had learned her lesson, and very nearly the hard way, for she knew that if he had arrived down in that ballroom, and if that female person had seen them together and alone, she, Phyllis de Nugent, would have been utterly ruined, her reputation lost for ever.

  If to be ten minutes without your maid meant that you faced ruin, what would have happened if she had been found with a single, middle-aged man? There would not have been a hope in a million of someone like Edwin’s taking her into a conservatory, any conservatory, and asking for her hand.

  Worse than that, she would have been known throughout Society as damaged goods, and sent home, not even home to her father’s house but possibly to live with Aunt Tattie at Bannerwick, to a lifetime of sewing samplers and suchlike activities, which was to say to a life of doom and wasted hopes.

  As the smoke arose from that wretched card and it fell into satisfying little black shreds, and eventually totally disintegrated in the hearth, Phyllis decided, for the first time since her father died, that she would try to be as good as she could – as good as she thought her mother to be – for she knew now that just for derring-do, and from boredom, she had very nearly ruined her whole life.

  She undressed herself, laying out her clothes on the chair in a modest sequence, ready for the morning, and even remembering to kneel and say her prayers.

  The last of which, whispered, and necessarily very personal, ran, And thank you, God, for not letting Aunt Tattie see me! Thank you a million, million times, and I will always be good from now on, for ever and ever. Amen.

  After which she hopped into bed and, pulling the covers up to her chin, fell asleep remembering Edwin and how they had danced and laughed together, and how she had confided to him how much she hated the Season and wished only to be back in the countryside, and how he had felt exactly the same. And how their eyes had met, knowing, at once, that they were that strange thing, twin souls, and that very soon they would not have to even bother to voice their thoughts, they were so alike.

  PART TWO

  Giving Back

  Herbert Forrester sighed and looked out of the window, away from the invitation that was resting in his hand. His darling May, now Duchess of Wokingham, had never forgotten them, and nor would she, he dared say.

  In his hand, and the reason for his reverie, was an invitation to Mr and Mrs Herbert Forrester from ‘The Duke and Duchess of Wokingham’, in other words May and her dear husband, to a great, grand ball in their London house.

  Of course Herbert would not be going, and nor would his beloved Jane, not just because of the latter’s determination to avoid seeing or hearing from May and ‘her set’, as dear Jane would sometimes refer to them, but for other reasons, reasons that Herbert could not reveal to anyone.

  As a matter of fact he was only too thankful that his Jane had such a bee in her bonnet about the Wokinghams. For, and here again Herbert sighed, it made it so much easier to give a reasonable excuse to his beloved for not going to London. If he pandered, happily, to Jane’s aversion to fashionable London folk, she would never suspect the real reason why Herbert would not be making the long journey to enjoy the Wokinghams’ ball, which he knew would be attended by everyone who was anyone, including King George and Queen Mary, and members of the aristocracy and the government; and doubtless enjoyed by them too.

  No, Jane was never to know why they were not going down to London, why they would not be hiring a town house for the week, why he would not be taking her to buy her the most beautiful gown she could ever wish for, why he would not be hiring the best and most expensive jewellery from some ageing aristocrat for her to wear. No, he would rather take his own life than ever let his Jane know that she was not long for this world.

  ‘My dear.’ Jane bustled into the first floor drawing room. Mid-morning she was always bustling, it seemed to Herbert. Seeing the invitation in her husband’s hand, she put her head on one side, and looked questioningly at him. ‘My dear, anything of particular interest?’

  ‘No, my love. Nothing to concern ourselves with, you will be very well glad to hear. No, just our May feeling kindly towards us, as always, and sending us an invitation to the ball they are giving in London next month. But—’

  ‘We shan’t be going, shall we, Herbert?’

  A gleam of something close to terror appeared in his wife’s honest brown eyes as Herbert turned from the window to look at her.

  ‘Good Lord, no, my love. Why, I know, better than you even, that a visit to London is as agreeable to you as having a tooth pulled!’

  They both laughed, and as Jane did so she gave a little light cough, and waved a fan, one of the many she had collected, to be found on all the small tables crowding the room.

  ‘Oh, you are so right, Herbert. That is exactly how it is for me. Going to London is tantamount to having a tooth pulled!’

  She gave another little wave of the fan, and another little cough, and then, putting her head on one side, she said, ‘It’s nice we are so alike in our tastes, isn’t it, Herbert? I can’t imagine you being married to a woman who liked gadding about and going to London all the time.’

  Herbert hesitated. He hated to tell Jane any kind of untruth, but the fact was that it was she, and not he, who had s
uch a particular taste for the quiet life, and did not like London. To humour her, however, he always played along with the myth, amounting now almost to legend, that he did not enjoy parties or dressing up and going out to socialise.

  Mind you, it was true that York more than satisfied his needs. They went on visits to friends who lived some way outside the city, particularly during the short and blessed break known as the Yorkshire Summer. And then in the winter they visited each other for games of cards and suchlike activities, and dinners – there were good dinners cooked in friends’ houses, no denying that, no denying it at all.

  ‘No, you’re right, love,’ Herbert replied at last. ‘I enjoy our life here, and our friends, more than I can say. And I have no real desire to be anywhere except in your company.’

  This last was certainly true. He had no desire to be with anyone but his Jane, particularly since the doctor had told him of her incipient illness, knowledge which, their doctor had stressed, must be kept from her if she was to survive as long as they hoped. If she was to survive the coming summer, she must never even suspect that she had more than a little infection which ‘brought her down’ some days, or that the pills she took were more than just ‘strengthening’ pills made from various livers and so on.

  ‘I doubt that she will last another winter, Mr Forrester, but let us take one day at a time, and no more and no less, eh?’ At which his old friend had squeezed Herbert’s arm. ‘I know what it is like to lose one’s wife, and believe me, I had rather it had been me than her, in my own case. A man alone is rather a pathetic creature, I always think. We don’t do well on our own, we men. But there, I am lucky, as you are. I have a daughter.’

  ‘What shall I tell Jane, though? What should I tell her?’ Herbert’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘I don’t want her frightened. I won’t have her frightened.’

  ‘And no reason she should be. No, far better to keep one’s loved one in ignorance. Woe to the man or woman who takes it upon themselves to act like God and pronounce on someone else’s life span. These modern doctors who turn round with “You’ve got a week”, what do they know? Why not ten days, rather than a week? Why not a fortnight? They should keep their mouths shut, not pronounce on us all as if they were the Almighty.’