The Season

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘We have a house guest, George. I know you will be kind to her. She does not know it yet, and you must not mention it – I am to break the news tomorrow morning – but her family home in Ireland has been razed to the ground. Too terrible for them, but we wish her to enjoy the ball tonight without that sorrow on her.’

  ‘How frightful.’

  ‘Yes, it is horrid. And George, there is another thing. She does need someone to be nice to her. She is a very, very plain gel, and no-one, so far, has really paid her much attention. It is only a little thing, but after the King has led off the ball with me, and Papa followed with the Queen, will you be kind enough to follow with her? She is after all our house guest for the rest of the Season, if she will stay, which is very doubtful, although I hope she will. Will you lead her out? It would be such a compliment to her. Please do this for me, despite her being so very, very plain.’

  Inside George groaned. Up to London, which was bad enough, a night spent dancing instead of seated in the library at home enjoying a book and a glass of wine, and now dancing with an ugly girl!

  ‘Of course, Mama. I will do whatever you want, providing you will not mind my returning to the country tomorrow.’

  ‘You can’t go tomorrow George, that is far too soon. You have to come to Court. You must stay at least a week, you know you must.’

  It was their way of bargaining, and they both knew it.

  ‘Not a week, Mama, please. How will I go on? There is nothing to do in London during the day except dance attendance on dowagers at soirées, and the last time I did so one of them passed out on me and I nearly suffocated.’

  ‘George, dearest boy, that was a small incident, and if you are man enough to fall off your horses out hunting then you are perfectly man enough to have dowagers fall on you while you take tea. Do not tell me you lack social courage, or I will think you as much a coward as a man who shirks fighting for his country. People need all forms of courage, you know, not just courage in battle.’

  May had scored, and they both knew it. George coloured. It was true. He did lack social courage, but, and this was a big ‘but’ as far as he was concerned, he was damned if he would let his mother see that he did. Not now that she had pointed it up, he would not. He turned away, his face setting. Damn it, women like his mother always seemed to get their way. Which was right, he supposed, since they ran the servants and set the tone of everything, but even so – a whole week in London!

  ‘We will meet here in the drawing room before dinner. We dine in the Long Room, and then we go down for the ball. So, I expect you will want to go and stretch your legs before all this. Why not go out in the Park on a hireling and ogle a few of the prettier equestrians?’

  ‘I was thinking I might go to Burlington Arcade. There must be a cravat or two there that I could fancy, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  May’s head was on one side once again, and she smiled, always a danger sign, as George well knew.

  ‘Oh, but I told the old chap up at the livery stables that you would take out one of his hirelings. I rather fancy he is to have it ready for you at half past two.’

  Again George groaned inwardly. His mother was always ahead of the game. She seemed to know young men too well.

  ‘But riding in the Park is such tame stuff, Mama.’

  ‘Oh, I agree, George. It is, of course, but an awful lot of what you will pass on horseback in the Park is far from tame, I do assure you. Luncheon is in the small dining room at one, by the way.’

  With which May left George to chew the cud and eventually, in high dudgeon, dash back upstairs to give Misty a hearty dish of chicken.

  After leaving her son May sped away, well satisfied with the ground that she had prepared for George’s meeting with Edith. She fairly flew up the stairs to her rooms, first of all to make sure that Edith had settled in all right, and secondly to make sure that the costume she had ordered for her had arrived, that her new house guest liked it, and what was more that it fitted.

  The short answer was that the costume had arrived, but as soon as she burst in on Edith, May sensed at once that there was something wrong. What could the matter be? The box lay unopened on the bed and Cropper, the Duchess’s much treasured, highly trained personal maid, was looking as if she had just been told off.

  ‘Ah, so the costume has arrived. But there has been no time to open the box yet?’ May looked at the two people in the room with her innocent questioning gaze. ‘So. Obviously it has only just arrived, and so we need to unwrap it. Scissors please, Cropper.’

  Cropper, a small, stout northern woman with friendly brown eyes and a figure like a toby jug, went thankfully to the dressing table and after a few seconds duly produced a pair of scissors to cut the ribbons on the box.

  Edith stared at the gown when the Duchess took it out of its box as if she had never thought to own a dress like it, which indeed she had not. Up until now her dresses had been made up of old white dresses and more old white dresses, very suitable for a debutante, her mother had kept telling her, and indeed, as the run of things went, Edith had found that most young girls up from the Shires were dressed just as simply as herself. With the occasional exception of mothers like Mrs Hartley Lambert, and a few others, most parents did not think it worth tricking out their daughters in expensive dresses for ball after ball. Once they were married it was quite different; then their husbands were supposed to supply them with a large dress allowance and they were meant to vie with other people’s wives to be the best dressed. That was how it was. No father would give a vast sum for a single dress, until perhaps her wedding day, and even then they were usually heard to heave a large and hearty sigh of relief when the girl in question declared that she would far rather wear her mother’s wedding dress.

  ‘Et violà!’ With Cropper’s expert help May laid out the costume. It could not have been more suitable if it tried. ‘It is a copy of the Winterhalter dress worn by the Empress Eugénie, and I really think it could not be more beautiful,’ May said, as she and Cropper spread out the hoops and the immense petticoats, and then, at last, the dress. ‘It is quite, quite lovely, I think, and it was to be worn by Miss Prudence Mahon, but she had to be whisked back to America, for all sorts of reasons. I suddenly remembered her mother pleading with me to find someone to wear it, and then herself taking off for the United States and leaving it behind in the charge of Mrs Binty in Dover Street. So here it is. For one night, Edith dearest, you are going to be not a duchess, not a queen, but an empress!’

  Cropper looked to Edith, and then at the dress, and then back to Edith again.

  ‘I wonder if it isn’t gonna need a touch of altering along the bust line, Your Grace, so I best get it on her, and then run it into the sewing room.’

  ‘Come, Edith,’ said May, suddenly suspecting that the young girl was feeling just like George downstairs, fearful of stepping into the limelight. ‘I am one of your godmothers, as you probably know, so this is your coming out present from myself and the Duke. And I am only sorry we were not in London sooner, so that we could have been of use sooner.’

  Pale-faced and unable to believe that she was really going to wear such a dress, Edith stepped towards the two women.

  ‘Hold out your arms.’

  Edith held out her arms and May and Cropper held the dress against her.

  ‘Perfect,’ May said, smiling happily. ‘Quite perfect. I always say, from having been on the stage – no, I am afraid I always boast that I can judge a girl’s measurements from fifty yards. It becomes rather a habit, do you see, from being backstage and so on. Costumes go missing, other people take what is yours and try to wear it, and then you have to take other people’s because they are wearing yours – oh, you know how it is. It goes on and on, backstage I mean. So that you end up being able to spot a costume’s size at twenty paces!’

  The dress was of a tasteful pale blue, Pompadour blue, and cut across the front into a sculpted and rounded vee, the wide sleeves caught up with pale pink silk roses, the s
ame outlining the front of the dress. The waist was small and tight, and set off the enormous skirt which lay above not just the hoop but also a mountain of petticoats.

  May said to Cropper, ‘How beautiful it all is, and how beautiful Miss O’Connor is going to look in it. Come, let us dress her in the hoop and petticoats and then throw the dress over the top, in the accepted manner.’

  She walked Edith firmly to the looking glass, and Edith could hardly believe her eyes. She would never have thought that a dress, any dress, could so change a person. What was more, the dress was so beautiful that she felt she would have to live up to it, unlike the dresses her mama had put her in, which had made her feel mousy and ill at ease, if not grousy and out of sorts.

  ‘I shall leave you now, my dear, to have a rest. Cropper will look after the dress alteration, it is only tiny. And everything will be just so, you wait and see. And Edith, you must understand, this is a gift, you know, from the Duke and me. No, we do not want to be thanked, we just want you to feel happy in it. And if you do not, why, you can choose something else. Possibly one of your own dresses, something familiar, if you do not wish to be in costume. It is just more lively if you are.’

  ‘I love the dress, more than I can tell you.’ Edith loved it so much that she did not want to get out of it.

  ‘Cropper will dress your hair in the larger way that was so fashionable then. It will look very fine, you can be sure of that.’

  Cropper was more than a help to Edith, she was a friend, or at least she became a friend in a very few minutes.

  ‘Tell you what, Miss O’Connor, why not let me undress you here and now and lie down on the bed in your tea gown?’

  ‘I have no tea gown, I am afraid. I have only a wrap.’

  ‘Well, never mind, eh? I will hurry along and borrow one from the Duchess. She has a wardrobe full that she keeps not just for herself but for anyone staying, too. She is that generous, you know, Her Grace. It comes from having been an actress, I always think, used to bunking up and sharing when she was younger. She never has forgotten her days behind the footlights neither, bless her.’

  Cropper hurried off and was astonished, if not shocked, to find when she came back that Edith had undressed herself without her help.

  ‘Well, well, miss, that was very good of you, really it was, to help me out in this way,’ she said, covering her embarrassment at seeing a young woman of Edith’s background fending for herself. ‘Still. There was no need, I do assure you. We are more than happy to dress and undress guests, as you may imagine. Used to all sorts here, too.’

  She held out a tea gown, Japanese in style, and as soon as Edith put it on she felt exotic, which was hardly surprising given that it had much gold and black embroidery on it, not to mention butterflies on the sleeves and collar. She laughed suddenly, looking at herself in the looking glass, Cropper standing behind her.

  ‘I feel as though I ought to have a knitting needle through my hair.’

  ‘And so you shall if you should want it, although judging from this picture the Duchess has just given me it will not be quite in keeping, I shouldn’t have thought, not with the Empress,’ Cropper said, and she stared for a second at Edith’s face reflected in the mirror.

  Edith turned away, thinking that the maid must be staring at her uneven profile or her less than classical features, but Cropper, very gently, turned her back.

  ‘No, no, Miss O’Connor, if you don’t mind. I must study your face in order to arrange your hair for you tonight. Would you mind if I washed it for you in an hour or so, and dressed it myself?’

  ‘No, of course not. I am afraid that between us Minnie and I – that is my maid – usually make a bit of a bird’s nest of it, you know. It does seem to frizz so, but in the wrong places, I find. Never where I would like, at the front, but always wispy bits escaping at the side.’

  Cropper smiled, patting the young girl lightly on her back, realising of a sudden how much she needed mothering, poor soul. She had been neglected in all the refined areas where a young girl should never be neglected.

  ‘I have all sorts of potions and lotions that I use to take out frizz where it is not wanted, and I am a dab hand with the curling tongs, I think you will find, even if it is myself that says so. I have never had no complaints as yet when I dressed a lady’s hair, I will say. Probably spoken too soon, but I have not – yet. See, you have a heart-shaped face, and that is very becoming to a certain style. And your hair is beautiful, really quite lovely. You don’t mind my saying that, do you?’

  ‘My hair?’ Edith looked astonished. ‘But my mama has always said that my hair is too fine, and the colour not very interesting. Hers, you see, was auburn, and now is a wonderful white. Very flattering, as you may imagine.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cropper agreed, obediently, but not really listening because in her experience very few mothers knew how to turn out their daughters in any kind of style that suited them, starting as they did usually with their own looks and their own style which was usually two generations out of date. The corsets that she had been obliged to throw out that some poor young girls were expected to sport under their clothes! They were hardly worth thinking about, except to remember that some of them once they reached the kitchen dustbins were discovered to be so ancient and so antiquated that they had even made Cook split her sides with laughter at their antiquity.

  Such poor creatures, some of these girls were who were sent up to London to do their social stint! Some of them did not seem to know what time of day it was. Very often their mothers had died and they had only grandmothers to bring them up. Fathers were never interested, of course. It was a wonder that they were ever married off to anyone.

  Many had been the time when Cropper, seeing the contents of some debutante’s portmanteaux, had found herself thinking that she would not have been surprised if the girl had been sent up from the country tricked out in a white wig and a silk dress with panniers, and a box of black patches to stick on their faces. Really! What some country families thought would pass as clothes for their daughters for the London Season did not bear thinking about.

  ‘Now then, miss, lie you down on that bed and leave all the rest to Cropper. That’s right, shut your eyes and feel quite free to think and breathe yourself into a little bit of sleep. Like when you was little, miss, you know? And your gran came and read to you in the afternoons. One of the best times of day, I always think. Nothing to touch it, except late at night, that’s another lovely time for all of us, what with hot milk and biscuits and a warm bed, don’t you think?’

  But Cropper was speaking to herself, for when she looked over towards the bed the poor young girl was fast asleep under the cover and looking, with her hair down, more like ten years of age than the seventeen or so that she was meant to be, her long dark hair falling free, and, if Cropper was not mistaken, a contented smile on her sweet little face.

  ‘Poor thing,’ the maid thought to herself as she tiptoed about the room setting up all her lotions and potions preparatory to beginning what promised to be a lengthy transformation. ‘As I understand it, her mother’s had a tragedy and had to return home and the Duchess has taken her under her wing. Could not be worse really. But then that is the Duchess all over, always taking on some cause or another, or some lost sheep, or some ageing person. Dear me, all these years! When I think back, the house was always full of them back in the country. Luckily the Duke was more realistic and very often, realising that the Duchess was being taken for a sop, would gently send them on their way.’

  She stared again over to the bed. Different here, though. This Miss O’Connor, she was a nice young girl, and by the time Cropper had finished with her she was going to be a beauty, or Cropper would want to know the reason why.

  What seemed like hours later but was in fact only a little more than an hour, Edith woke up to see Cropper seated and sewing, and said, ‘Oh dear, I had such a bad dream. I thought I smelled burning! Goodness, how nice to be awake.’

  Cropper stared at he
r, momentarily startled, and then she said, ‘Well now, Miss Edith – you don’t mind me calling you that? No? Well, now that you are awake, we may begin.’

  She set aside her sewing, which Edith could see was something with ribbons and a piece of lace, a little like the dress that had arrived in that huge box. Cropper held out her hand to Edith, who took it, half marvelling as she always did at the roughness of maids’ hands, at the feeling that those hands had seldom been out of water or free from soap of one kind or another at any time of their life.

  ‘Do you like being a maid, Cropper?’ Edith turned her beautiful eyes on the older woman.

  ‘I beg your pardon, miss? Do I like being a maid? Why, Miss O’Connor, you’re not one of those Liberals, are you? Begging your pardon, miss, but really! What a question! Of course I likes being a maid. I get more happiness out of what I do than the Duchess gets out of what she does, I sometimes thinks. More variety, you see. Her Grace, as I see it, often has to do many tedious things that she had rather not, but she must, and without complaining, because that is what duchesses do.’

  She paused, nodding, obviously agreeing with herself most heartily.

  ‘But me, I only do what I like doing. Dressing hair, handling fine clothes, sewing confections of one kind or another, using my imagination for my coiffures. There’s nothing that I am not asked to do, and nothing I do that I do not enjoy, or would be without. Long may our lives here last, miss, really. Long may these years continue, for without this house and these families people like me would not have the fun that we have. We are never lonely – bend your head over the basin, Miss Edith – we are never without friends, or a roof over our heads, or fine food to eat. We are cared for until we die. Do I enjoy being a maid, miss?’ Cropper started to feel the water in one of the copper jugs. ‘I like it better than anything I care to think of. Why, last Season Her Grace gave us all a week off at the end. Caused a scandal among her friends, I can tell you, but she did. And’ – Cropper leaned forward – ‘she only gave me a fur hat and tippet, can you imagine? Oh, she’s terrible she is. Liable to give away the clothes she stands up in if you’re not careful. I have to keep a hold on her, a tight rein sometimes, but she just laughs. I know, Cropper, I know! That’s all she says – well, that’s all she has to say, because she knows that I am the one with the common sense, and she is the one what gets run off with by her feelings.’