Love in a Major Key

by Fiona Hill

  “Daphne,” said the Countess, “this gentleman is Anthony Graves, Lord Houghton. He has been a gossip-monger and a notorious flirt for well over fifty years. Never tell him any thing, my dear, and never believe a word he says. Anthony, this is my great-grand-daughter, Miss Keyes.”

  Daphne courtesied with natural grace to Houghton, who took her hand directly. “What a flower you are!” he exclaimed. “The image of Margaret in her youth.”

  “I am—very pleased to make your acquaintance,” said she.

  “You could not be so pleased as I am to make yours, Miss Keyes,” he said. “If only I were fifty years younger! Even forty would suffice.”

  This was Daphne’s first encounter with flattery. For a moment she stood silent, thinking hard. “But if you were, sir,” she answered at last, “I should perhaps never have met you at all; for I think you would not be so well acquainted with my great-grandmother.”

  “Brava!” cried the Countess, clapping her hands. “I see you will have no trouble with the bucks you are sure to meet. Come and kiss me again, Daphne,” she said.

  Lord Houghton relinquishing her hand, the young woman obliged her.

  “So you are glad to be in London, eh girl?” asked Lady Bryde.

  “I am, ma’am.”

  “And you think, no doubt, that your parents have fixed you in a pretty fine house?”

  “It seems so,” said Daphne.

  “‘One false step is ne’er retrieved,’” murmured her Ladyship, “‘Nor all that glisters, gold.’ My dear,” she said in a louder tone, “the sad truth is, that you could not be more unfortunately lodged—no, not if you were fixed in Bridewell.”

  “Indeed, ma’am?” cried Daphne, astonished.

  “Certainly not. At least in gaol there would be little chance of your meeting with any of the ton. Here, however…well, who knows but what some one might blunder into Marylebone?”

  “Marylebone is a—a low place, then?” she hazarded.

  “It is worse than a low place, my dear: it is a middle place. One may be resurrected from poverty, Daphne, even from squalor; but no phoenix ever rose from the ranks of the bourgeoisie. We must remove you, and your—I am sure, well-meaning—family at once.”

  “But we have only just settled here! Surely, where one lives cannot be so important as that? Captain Butler told us—”

  “Ah, so he is the villain, is he?” Lady Bryde interrupted. “I met him at Christmas,” she explained to Anthony; “a climbing sort of fellow. No doubt it is his fondest wish to own a house in Marylebone. However, it will not answer for you, Daphne.”

  “I suppose not; that is, if you are quite certain…”

  “I am more than certain, my dear. I am right. And now I think I hear your parents coming in. Is your brother at home?”

  “Yes; I think he is upstairs.”

  “Then go and fetch him, please. I see it is time I delivered a lecture on the topic of town-life. You may as well all be present.”

  Daphne rose with a brief courtesy and turned to quit the room. “O, and one more thing, my dear,” added the Countess. “See if you cannot find your Mr. Clayton. I know your father believes nothing these days until he has heard it from Mr. Clayton’s lips.”

  In a few minutes the household had been assembled in the parlour. Lord Houghton was introduced all round, and Lady Bryde prepared to hold forth. “My good people,” she began, her hands folded firmly in her lap, “the city of London is like no other city in the world. In it, you will find, a number of very odd customs obtain. They will seem to you peculiar; they will seem to you arbitrary; at times, they may even seem not worth regarding.” Here she paused to fix her audience with a stern gaze. “Believe me I pray: they are worth regarding. Learn them. Follow them. If necessary, do not even attempt to understand them. Simply ape them, foolish though they may be, as if your lives depended on it. They do. Am I understood?” she inquired. No one spoke. “I trust I am. Now, if I were to try to catalogue all of these customs to you, we should be here till evening. Besides, you would undoubtedly forget more than you remembered. Instead, I shall give you certain rules of thumb; you may rest assured of the utter truth of every thing I am about to tell you. Are you all quite ready?” Again, no one answered. “Very well, then. The first thing you must do is to vacate this house immediately. If possible, never even drive through Marylebone again. You will take a house in Grosvenor Square, if we can find one. If not, an hundred places will be better than where we are now. Second: do not speak to strangers. Do not approach any one to whom I have not introduced you. If you feel overwhelmingly drawn to converse with some one, ask me first. I will determine whether it is a person with whom you should be acquainted. Master Latimer, you especially must take note of this: as wealthy and as gullible as you are, certain men will be positively drooling to take you into low company and make a cake of you. Is that clear?”

  “Very clear,” said Latimer, feeling unduly chastened.

  “Good. The third and last rule, then, is never to do any thing first. Do not attempt to take the initiative. Do not endeavour to set a fashion. Do not pick up a fork, do not reach for a glass, until at least three other people have done so. Do not, Daphne, accept a dance until other couples are on the floor. Do not, Latimer, invite a young lady in to supper until two or three parties have preceded you. Do not remark upon any thing which has not already been remarked upon. Do not, in short, do any thing which might possibly be called original. It is certain to be the death of you. Have I made my point?”

  The company nodded mutely.

  “Excellent. The Keyes’ will very soon be spoken of as the very best London families are spoken of; which is to say, not spoken of at all. Believe me, that is the highest praise one may aspire to. And now, Mr. Clayton, I believe you and I must have a brief tête-à-tête on the subject of residences. The rest of you will probably wish to start packing.” With a grave inclination of the head, she dismissed the assembled party. A short time later she and Lord Houghton took their leave, abjuring the Keyes family as they went not to stir out of their present abode until they had a better direction to return to. Mr. Clayton issued from the house soon after, to attend to her Ladyship’s instructions.

  Within three days, the family had been reestablished intact in a small but pleasant house near Grosvenor Square. It was called Finchley House, probably from the circumstance of some one named Finchley having built it, though no one seemed to know for certain. The interior was, Lady Bryde noted with approval, decorated in the style which had been current during her early youth: there was a great deal of polished mahogany, all the draperies were rich and heavy, and nearly everything was parcel-gilt. A large tapestry, representing Andromache exiled among the Greeks, had been hung in the dining-parlour, and she gazed pensively across the table at a number of sombre oil-paintings. The walls everywhere, in fact, were hung with such paintings, and Daphne discovered to her dismay that her bed-chamber was graced with a portrait of a quite hideous old man, who stared at her alarmingly.

  When, a se’ennight later, the family assembled once more, they did so in the oak-panelled drawing-room. It was twilight; long blue shadows washed the polished wood floor. Darkness was falling quickly; Daphne observed the reflection of the lamp beside her become brighter and brighter on the panes of the tall windows, until at last Mrs. Jennings came in and untied the long velvet draperies that covered them at night. She was seated, wearing a white gown with lace ruffles at the tight wrists, on a gilt-wood settee upholstered with shiny blue-and-white brocade. Her hair, drawn smooth over her temples, had been gathered under her ears and woven into a series of long, thin plaits, which had then been caught up and looped into circles. With an unconscious motion, she smoothed several of the tiny pleats of muslin which adorned the bodice of her dress and touched an uneasy finger to one of the ornamental bone buttons which ran down its center. Her mother and brother were with her, but her father was no where to be seen.

  “Mamma,” said Latimer at last, jumping up from t
he gilt-wood chair which matched the settee on which Daphne was seated, “perhaps you’d better go and fetch him. It won’t do to be late to our very first soirée. Besides,” he added a bit slyly, “my great-grandmother will be watching for us—you may depend upon it. She won’t like our being tardy.” He began to pace up and down the drawing-room, his shiny high-lows tapping an impatient tattoo on the floor-boards. He had insisted on wearing trousers—against his mother’s better judgement—and he looked very odd to his sister, who was accustomed to see him in breeches. His tone was unusually low; this was because of the fact that his cravat rose almost to his chin, and he could not open his mouth fully without, imperilling its careful folds. Lord Houghton had commended the young man to the care of his own tailor, and the clothing he now wore represented the compromises that had been struck between them. Master Latimer insisted on cutting a dash; his tailor assured him that the best way to do that was to dress in unstartling garments, yet which fitted superbly. Thus it was that Latimer’s sky-blue coat encircled his waist to perfection—but from under this, instead of the white waist-coat which he should have worn, a pair of pink-and-blue striped points peeped out. Looking at him thoughtfully, Daphne was rather relieved that the only colour she was permitted to wear was white.

  “Your father is not accustomed to going out in Society,” Lady Keyes now answered mildly. “We must give him time.”

  “Time! The dancing will be all done with by the time we arrive,” cried Latimer. Then, observing the injured look in his mother’s eyes, he added, “I beg your pardon, Mamma. I didn’t mean to jump at you; it’s only that—I suppose I’m a bit agitated.” He looked at his sister curiously. “Aren’t you the least bit excited, Daph? You look as cool as ice.”

  “Of course I am excited, my dear—but Madame Jardinière cautioned me that if I fretted, I would be certain to stain my gown, or to twist the muslin and crumple it. She said I must be calm.” A smile lit her lips. Madame Jardinière was the French dress-maker to whose establishment Lady Bryde had sent her. “She pronounced calm as though it had two L’s in it: callm, or callum. It was quite droll.”

  “How does she expect you to dance?” asked Latimer.

  “I do not know,” mused Daphne. “I do not believe she meant for me to dance at all—merely to sit, or stand, and look jolie.”

  “Doing it a bit too brown, I think,” said her brother.

  “What does that mean?” Lady Keyes inquired.

  “O! It is a cant expression. I learnt it from an ostler.”

  “That is an interesting place to learn vocabulary,” his mother commented, with not the least severity of tone.

  “Yes…well, you two had better not use it, but it is quite all right for me. Mamma, where is Father?”

  Before Lady Keyes had time to answer, Sir Latimer’s step was heard on the stair-case, and the doors to the drawing-room opened. “Good-evening,” said he; “every one ready?” Sir Latimer was wearing stockinette pantaloons, black, with the usual white waist-coat and a coat of muted blue. His son noted with disapprobation that his stock had been tied with as little fuss as possible. Even more disheartening was the forest-green enamelled snuffbox which Sir Latimer now drew nervously from his pocket.

  “You aren’t going to bring that along!” the youth exclaimed involuntarily, as his father took a pinch of snuff with a slightly trembling hand.

  “And why not, may I ask?”

  “It is—so ordinary! So countrified!”

  “But I am from the country,” the Baronet protested.

  “That is nothing to do with it!” cried Latimer. “Sir,” he added, rather too late.

  “And what shall I do? Go without snuff the whole evening?”

  “Yes…I mean, no, of course not. But—O, blast it all, let us be off or we shall never get there at all.”

  “My idea precisely,” said his father. “I think the coach is waiting. Margaret—” he said, offering an arm to his wife. The two children descended to the ground floor behind their parents.

  They had never met their hostess, Lady Mufftow, before. Lady Bryde had arranged for the Keyes’ to be invited, thinking that one of Drusilla Mufftow’s dreary little soirées would be an appropriate introduction to what is some times called the brilliant social whirl of the ton. “At least,” the Countess remarked to Lord Houghton, “if they disgrace themselves there, no one of interest will see them. No one, that is, except ourselves.”

  “Except yourself, my dear,” Lord Houghton had corrected. “I have no intention of going.”

  “But Anthony, I shall die of tedium!”

  “Nonsense, Margaret. Tedium does not curtail life; it prolongs it. For my part, I shall be at White’s. If you do feel your vitality ebbing away from you, you may send a note round to me there.”

  “Anthony, I consider this really too unkind,” Lady Bryde had said. However, nothing could move the old gentleman, and the Countess, when her carriage rolled up to Lady Mufftow’s door on the evening in question, emerged alone.

  “Good-evening, Drusilla,” she said, when she reached the large drawing-room in which the company was gathering. “You ought to do some thing about all those ghastly stairs,” she added, referring to the marble double-staircase which led from the ground to the first floor; “there is no question but what they get longer with every passing year.”

  She paused to look about her while Lady Mufftow made polite inquiries. “I am very well, thank you,” she said in answer to these. “You look quite pinched. I suppose you have been drinking vinegar again. I assure you, it does you no good.”

  Lady Mufftow, a rather short woman inclined to plumpness, was addicted to the idea of losing weight. Her most recent regime consisted of a good deal of vinegar and very little of any thing else. It had, indeed, succeeded in reducing some of her bulk; however, her cheeks were very pale indeed, and she did not look at all happy. She wore a high turban, which was meant to elongate her squat figure; its effect, unfortunately, was rather to dwarf her, since it was hopelessly out of proportion with the rest of her person. Still, her faded eyes brightened at the mention of vinegar, and she began to talk enthusiastically about the success of her diet.

  The Countess interrupted her in a very few minutes. “Drusilla,” she said, “you must help me to understand some thing. Now it is generally agreed, among good society, that one does not talk about food. The entire business of eating, in fact, is felt to be a rather unpleasant affair, discussion of which, moreover, is as needless as it is distasteful. Why is it, then, that whenever a person restricts his diet, or consumes particularly nasty things, the question of nourishment suddenly appears to him to be the most fascinating, irresistible topic of conversation?” Lady Mufftow, quite understandably, was silent. “When you have answered that for me, my dear, you may tell me if my grand-daughter has arrived yet.”

  “Margaret,” said Lady Mufftow at last, “I do not know how you contrive it. Every other word from your lips is a criticism; and yet one likes you so extremely!” She sighed a quiet little sigh. “I have not seen any of the Keyes family,” she went on. “If they are come, I did not hear them announced.”

  “No, I do not see them any where. I wonder if they were delayed? It is very vexatious of them; I particularly came late myself, so that I should not be obliged to wait for them. I detest soirées, you know; one is for ever being buffeted about, and the hum of conversation generally puts me to sleep. O dear, now you will think I have been rude, Drusilla. You know I do not mean any thing by it.”

  She pressed her hostess’ hand hastily and went off towards the thick of the crowd. There was quite a number of people already present; what Lady Mufftow described as a quiet evening did not coincide with the Countess’ notion of one. To amuse herself, she counted the company, and found there were some twenty couples, most of whom fell into the tenebrous category of middle-age. A good number were young, however, and there were two women who had been in London the year she herself had made her come-out. She addressed one of these now. />
  “Letitia, my dear, so very good to see you. I am well, thank you, and so are you. Now that we have dispensed with that, do tell me where that music is coming from. Do you know?” The strains to which Lady Bryde alluded could be heard clearly above the murmur of voices. It was piano forte music, and was played with great feeling, the clear notes dropping like rain from the instrument.

  “I believe the player is in the ball-room,” said Letitia, a little annoyed with her old friend for having broke into a discussion of some interesting bit of scandal. “His name is Christian Livingston, I think; the Viscountess Dedham employed him last week, to play at that ridiculous rout party she gave. Were you there?”

  But Lady Bryde did not answer. Her elegant, powdered head inclined to one side, she was listening intently to the music. It was a sonata; time after time the brief theme recurred, now emphasized, now reversed: on each occasion of its reappearance, it gained new meaning, added nuance. Eventually, she began to drift towards the doors of the drawing-room; her progress was stopped, however, by the announcement of the Keyes family. She went to meet them and surveyed them coolly.

  “Not too bad,” she pronounced at last. “Latimer, never wear that waist-coat again. I presume you met Lady Mufftow?”

  “Yes, at the door, Grandmamma,” Lady Keyes replied. “She seemed very gracious.”

  “She is not,” the Countess replied. “She is kind-hearted. There is a difference, my dear; it has to do with style. To be gracious, one must have countenance. Any one at all may be kind-hearted. Now I suggest, Daphne, that you come with me. I shall introduce you to a girl who made her come-out last season. Her name is India, and I believe she is quite sweet, but I must caution you: a girl who has been out for a full year and has not yet been offered for frequently becomes rather hard. Do as she does, but pay no attention to what she says. Her manner is perfect; her notions are likely to be silly, or worse. Latimer, you may as well come with us. India has a brother about your age.” So saying, she shepherded the two young people across the room, taking a moment first to remind their parents to speak to no one until she had returned to introduce them properly. She bowed slightly and murmured a few words of greeting to several people, all the time efficiently propelling her great-grandchildren across the room to where India Ballard and her brother, William, were standing.