The Season

by Charlotte Bingham

  Sarah nodded, not believing him but enjoying the pain in his eyes. He had behaved disgracefully, and the whole of London knew it.

  ‘You are a good dancer,’ she conceded. ‘That at least is something.’

  ‘When I am with someone with such kind eyes as yours I want to be good at everything, not just dancing. Why have I not met you before?’

  Sarah laughed. ‘I dare say if you had met me before your fascination with a certain person has been such that you would not have noticed me anyway, Captain Fortescue, and you are holding me too tight. It is not correct.’

  ‘I am sorry. I did not mean to.’ He released his grip a little, but his eyes remained on Sarah’s face, and then he said, looking suddenly less contrite and a good deal more himself, ‘I say, Miss Hartley Lambert, you dance like a dream. Will you let me teach you the tango?’

  Sarah stared up at him. The tango? This was fast talk indeed.

  ‘I very much doubt it.’

  ‘Very well, marry me then, and I will teach you the tango and no-one could stop us, just imagine! You are perfect for modern dancing.’

  ‘From what I have heard you do need to be married to do the tango,’ Sarah admitted ruefully.

  They both laughed, and for a second their eyes met in an unspoken conspiracy. A whole vista had suddenly opened up to them both, a married world where they could both tango, or Bunny Hug, or – well, anything, and no-one could stop them.

  ‘If we were married,’ Barrymore went on, dreamily, ‘we could have our own private tango club, and telephones in every room, and fast cars outside the front door, imagine?’

  ‘Is that how you see marriage, Captain?’

  ‘Don’t you, Miss Hartley Lambert?’

  Sarah stared up at him. It was suddenly mesmerising, the thought of marriage being fun. It had never occurred to her that marriage could be fun, or that people who were married did have fun. She had thought of marriage as dull and confusing, and having to put up with much that you would not tolerate in any other state, but she had never before thought that it might be amusing.

  ‘If you married me we would have a house filled with laughter, and life would be one long tango, I promise you that, Miss Hartley Lambert.’

  ‘Our children would be too tall,’ Sarah told him, impulsively, and then, realising that she had said too much, she looked away, colouring. It was her turn to be embarrassed. ‘Although I believe the Countess told my mother that in England the nurses give the babies gin to keep them small, so that would take care of that problem,’ she went on gamely.

  The waltz came to an end, but it was difficult for either of them to bow or curtsy, they were laughing so much. As far as ballroom conventions were concerned they had both gone too far and they knew it, but they had also become united in humour, conspirators, a little naughty, set against the rest of the world. He leaned forward and scribbled his name once more in her card, and underneath in tiny letters he wrote Tango, tango, tango with me!

  Sarah turned away from him. Neither her mother, nor the Countess, nor the all-important Corkie would approve of him as a choice, surely? Sarah started to dance once more, this time with the poor old Duke of Connerton, and she glanced sideways to her former partner who was waltzing past her with Miss O’Connor. Seeing him with another girl in his arms Sarah felt a stab of jealousy, which vanished quickly as he passed her murmuring, ‘Takes two to tango, particularly if the orchestra is playing a waltz.’

  Sarah pretended not to hear, but because he was so much taller than Edith O’Connor and she was so much taller than the Duke, she was quite able to see his mischievous expression, and that was what stayed in her mind long after the ball was over and she went home. It was his droll expression and the memory of their laughter that kept her awake half the night, so that when Corkie woke her as usual with her cup of hot chocolate she said to her young mistress, ‘My, you look as if you have been awake all night, Miss Sarah. I’ll have to put tea leaves under your eyes.’

  Of a sudden Sarah realised that tea leaves were not going to be a cure for the particular ailment from which she now knew herself to be suffering.

  Old Friends

  Herbert had come to London, or at least to Kensington, for no other reason than to escape the loneliness of York. The more people stopped him to commiserate, the more people avoided his eyes when he alighted from his motor car, or a hansom cab, the more his loneliness seen through their eyes became etched in black for the sufferer.

  His echoing footsteps around his house seemed to say, ‘You are alone, you are alone.’ The servants looked at him, particularly the female servants, as if they expected him to grow horns and a tail. Being a man, their eyes said, he would not know how they felt; being a man, their eyes went on, he would not know how to put menus together, or talk to Cook, or cast an eye around a room and know immediately what was needed, dusting or sweeping, tidying or flowers. And it was true, being a man, he now felt as helpless as a baby. For thirty-five years he and Jane had gone their separate ways, knowing that each bore the other’s burden in a very different manner. His was business and the making of their fortunes, hers the care of their daughter and their home. It had been satisfactory all round, and both, in their very different ways, had appreciated each other, had known, without any doubt at all, they could be counted on.

  That was what he now missed, someone whom he could count on, someone whom he could turn to knowing that she would be only a step or two behind him, knowing that she would listen, that she would care how he felt, above all that she would tolerate his moods. For to feel grumpy on your own, to feel sad on your own, to think about the problems of the world on your own, was about as interesting or amusing as eating and drinking on your own.

  ‘That is good!’

  He found himself turning every now and then to try to catch one of the servants’ eyes when he took his luncheon or his dinner. Or, alone in his club, he found himself looking around at the other tables, lamely trying to catch the eye of another luncher or diner, failing, more often than not, and in failure being left to feel a fool. So all in all, Herbert alighted outside the two houses he had bought but as yet not seen with as light a heart as was possible in the circumstances. Here at least there was no possible chance of anyone’s either looking away or crossing the street when they saw him, or stepping back, which was often worse, to commiserate with him. Here he was just another sombrely dressed businessman with a black band on his arm, just another north countryman who had bought two houses, one of which he proposed to live in.

  ‘Mr Forrester?’

  A sprucely dressed gentleman was waiting for him on the top step of the large house. Looking up at him, and at the two houses, Herbert was glad to see that the agent for the family who had sold him the property did at least look respectable, which was not always the case with the agents of these old families. He was relieved to see, too, that the façade of both houses was broad, and not just substantial; they were, to all intents and purposes, imposing. And there was only a spread of about six or eight of them in the whole road, which meant that when he stepped inside the hall of the first the general air was one of importance and comfort. Of course they were not grand, like Medlar House, and they were not two spits from Piccadilly either. They were not in Mayfair at all, but they were well built, with porticoes and suchlike, probably only fifty years old, but good and solid for all that, and although there was no fancy plasterwork there were good mouldings and high ceilings, and when he followed the agent upstairs he was pleased to note that the stairs were shallow and the staircase broad, as were the landings. Nice broad landings with good deep architraves to the doors, and the first floor drawing rooms, while not embellished with gold and panelling, were gracious rooms with good big fireplaces, and they ran from back to front of the house and had sets of four windows which looked out towards Kensington Gardens.

  ‘I like these houses. No need to show me the one next door, I gather it is just the same as this, is it not?’

  Herbert lit a
cigar, such was the relief he was feeling at discovering that, despite buying from a distance, he had bought some good, even quite respectable property.

  ‘Are we quite sure that we do not want to see next door as well?’

  ‘Well, we are rather,’ said Herbert, smiling suddenly at the dapper little man standing to the side of him. He was smiling for the first time for weeks, and he went on smiling thinking of how Jane, were she with him, would laugh with him afterwards and possibly mimic the man: Are we sure that we do not want to see next door? He could hear her laughing and doing a bad imitation of a southern accent. ‘There is no point, you see. I will see the builders in the morning and let them work out what is to be done. Meanwhile I am off to my hotel, and you back to your office, no doubt?’

  ‘We do not have an office. We have chambers. We are acting as agents, but we are in fact lawyers. I am a junior partner.’

  ‘Well,’ said Herbert dryly, ‘please do not let us stop us returning to our chambers, shall we?’ He waited, fingering the innumerable sets of keys that he had just been handed, until the man reached the door, and then he said, pulling on his cigar, ‘Just as well I liked them, the houses, that is, would you not say? Just as well I liked them, eh?’

  The man nodded briefly, and with a last disapproving look at Herbert’s cigar, which was meant to give Herbert to understand that he was of the old school and did not approve of cigars outside the smoking room, he was gone, leaving Herbert to wander freely around the house. His house.

  It was a queer feeling, and despite his undoubted state of grief, an exciting one. To be all alone in an unfamiliar house was always odd, and left you with a feeling of trespass, even when you knew that the house in which you were tiptoeing was in fact your own.

  Walking slowly, his echoing footsteps giving him a feeling of excitement, Herbert started to explore the house, marking out in his mind, and making notes, at last, on his second tour, as to which rooms he would use for what.

  Obviously the first floor would be the drawing room, and there would have to be a small dining area, and a butler’s pantry for when he dined alone, for he wanted no more of sitting at the head of a large piece of mahogany and staring down at an empty place. And then above would be his bedroom and bathroom and dressing room. He could take out some walls to make the whole of that floor his own, make it spacious and masculine. He would buy large mahogany furniture, wardrobes and chests of drawers. He had seen all manner of pieces in various catalogues, some of them really quite innovative. Pieces that Jane would have looked at and then firmly shaken her head.

  ‘Too Artsy and Craftsy for me, our Herbert, too much silver inlay. And those large corner decorations, vulgar, I call those, and expensive too.’

  Now, all alone, Herbert thought, looking around as if someone could hear his ruminations, he would experiment with his own taste for the first time in his life. He would probably end up with a nightmare interior, but, at all events, he would at least have had some fun.

  And suddenly it came to him that despite everything he had done in his life, he had never had the opportunity to become mad, as in mad as May butter, or mad as a hatter, or just lunatic. No, he had always been sensible and reliable. He had never changed his style of dress, never worn something like a straw hat with jodhpurs. As a matter of fact he had never worn jodhpurs. He could not ride. He might ride. He might ride every day in Rotten Row, or he might learn to drive a team of horses, too fast, from London to Newmarket, or from Newmarket to London.

  Having reached the top of the house he sat down suddenly on one of the broad window sills. The room in which he sat had obviously been, and would be again, a maid’s room. Except – he pulled on his cigar once more – except he did not think he wanted to employ maids any more.

  No, he suddenly realised, he did not really like employing maids. He would employ only male servants. They were easier to deal with, less likely to carry criticism in their eyes, or give you back chat, silently, as maids seemed so adept at doing. And there would be no nonsense either with male guests, which, he had understood from Jane, could be such a nuisance to deal with, always having to send in the old and the ugly, in case there was hanky panky on offer.

  All these thoughts, some of which he would act upon, and others which he quite obviously would not, brightened Herbert, as new thoughts do, bringing with them a feeling that his future had been repainted in stronger colours. He descended to the hall once more, resolved to keep looking ahead, just kicking on, not looking to either side, and above all not looking back.

  The builders he called upon the next morning were a well-established firm, owned by an old friend, and so Mr Forrester was greeted with some warmth. Herbert knew very well that his friend would have been sure to tell the builder that Herbert Forrester was a rich man, and that if he called the builder must pay attention to him, make a fuss of him, allow him his head.

  Once inside the man’s office Herbert lit his first cigar of the morning, knowing that he would not be asked to go outside; he was the customer, after all. But Mr Blundell did not turn a hair, but looked appreciatively on as if he expected persons like Herbert Forrester to light cigars and smoke them whenever they wished, which gave Herbert the feeling that he was really going to like this fellow, that he was what Herbert called a goodly fellow.

  ‘To begin with, Mr Blundell, and I hope this will not upset you, I must tell you I am a man of no taste.’ As Blundell smiled and looked disbelieving, he continued, ‘No, really, I have no taste at all. That is the bad thing. The good thing is I do at least know it, and let us face it, Mr Blundell, that is a good thing, is it not? For I bet you a dime to a dollar, as the Americans say, that most of your clients think that they have taste at least as good as Mr Lutyens’s, and will not take advice on any point.’

  At this Mr Blundell did not smile, so Herbert knew at once that he had hit the nail on the head.

  ‘I used to know persons of fashion, at a certain point of my life, but quite briefly, as you may imagine,’ Herbert continued. ‘After all, I am not really the type to be taken up, except for a few seconds, by respectable and fashionable people.’ Blundell attempted to look disbelieving again, but Herbert went on, ‘But there was one thing I really admired about them. Most of them were like me, they knew that they had no taste. They knew that if they wanted their houses to look like anything better than bedlam they should invite someone of taste to help them. Last night, when I walked round the property I have just bought in Kensington, I had a mind to do it all myself. I could see it all as I thought it ought to be. And then, as I say, I thought back to the days when I mixed, albeit briefly, with persons of fashion, and I realised I could make a blunder. Worse, I could throw good money after bad and the whole thing would still be a disaster. So, reluctantly, I realised that I needed someone to help me with my decorations, widower that I am now, Mr Blundell. Are you that person, do you think?’

  Mr Blundell shook his head. ‘Oh, no, Mr Forrester. I would never see fit to advise others on their choices of interiors. I am a builder. I will help you make your house warm and comfortable and take orders for whatever you wish, but I would never help another choose. It would be presumptuous.’

  Herbert pulled on his cigar. ‘This is very good news, Mr Blundell. In fact this is the best news I have heard in a long time. You see, my question, as you doubtless realised, or maybe you did not, was a trap. Should you have said yes I would have known you for a greedy wretch who would stop at nothing to make a shilling, but by saying no you have shown yourself to be an honest fellow who, like me, knows his limitations. Now, I must hurry, because I have an appointment back at my house, with just such a person as I need. A person of taste, Mr Blundell. An old friend, as a matter of fact, the Duchess of Wokingham. I gather from the Society columns that it was her ball last night in London. A great grand affair, a costume ball – so much the rage now, as I understand it – but not for the likes of me or you, I am afraid, Mr Blundell.’

  It was only as Herbert turned at the
door, as Blundell was opening it for him, and shook the man’s hand that he realised that he had thrown the poor fellow into a dreadful muddle, first declaring himself to be ignorant and unfashionable, and seconds later hurrying off to meet a duchess.

  ‘Oh well,’ Herbert thought to himself as he stepped quickly into a hansom cab, and the horse in his turn stepped on it, ‘there is nothing to be done about anything, really, and if we are all understandable, and everyone knows what we are, then there is no excitement to life.’

  Excitement that was what he wanted, what he needed, to take the edge off his sorrow, excitement and change of circumstances. And perhaps he would not have to go to the South Sea islands to find it after all.

  The ball had been such a success that May could hardly believe the flowers that were arriving in the hall below. There had been something special about it this year, some feeling that they must all enjoy these dear days of summer, now, before it was too late. She had felt it, and in some strange way she could sense that everyone else had felt it too. There were nightingales singing in the trees as the guests arrived, there were candles glowing, and flunkeys running, the gold on their uniforms catching the light of the flares in the courtyard, and the sound of the murmur of the guests as they had waited to go up the stairs, but it had all been somehow different, this year, with less of a sense of a ritual, more of a sense of clinging on to the present before the future arrived.