The Shape of Sand

by Marjorie Eccles

  She removed the jewels, struggling a little with the clasp of the necklace. Leaving them in a little, shining heap on the dressing table for Hallam to put back in the box, she reached for her silver hand mirror and stared critically at her reflection, allowing the light to fall mercilessly on it. Birthdays were a time for assessment, especially after forty. But, thank God, she could see few lines on the smooth skin of her face. If there were grey hairs, the pale gold prevented them from being obvious yet. Even her neck showed no signs of ageing. Doubtless she was an asset to Amory, in all the ways he had suggested. They entertained lavishly, both here and at the London house in Mount Street, and she had gained something of a reputation as an accomplished hostess. They went out a great deal into society, and she had long been accustomed to the adulation she received as a notable beauty Yet she would have exchanged all - or nearly all – the compliments in the world simply …

  You must not expect too much of him, she chided herself. God knows, Amory was not an easy man to know, but the one thing she had learned about him was that he was the sort who, once he said he loved you (which he had done when he asked her to be his wife) did not see the necessity for ever saying it again.

  Picking up her hairbrush, she caught the scent of the two long-stemmed white lilies which Kit had sent to her, now on her dressing table in a tall Lalique vase of amber glass. Their perfume was almost dizzying. The tiny shadow which had threatened to darken the day melted away. ‘Beatrice, I could think of nothing more perfect for you,’ said the accompanying note, which he had signed, ‘Your Dante’.

  Silly! she told herself, smiling. He should have grown out of all that by now. At his age it was rather dangerous to flirt so outrageously with one who was virtually his aunt, indeed had been all but mother to him. She really should discourage him, but she knew no way other than being unkind – and besides, the delicacy of the compliment could not fail to flatter her. The quick warm colour once more flew to her cheeks as she recollected the note. She had been given lovely birthday gifts – exquisite lace handkerchiefs, a gold card-case, scent, a silver bookmarker – all expensive trifles of one sort or another. Iskander had sent along a truly beautiful heavy gold clip, set with lapis-lazuli, as deep and brilliant a blue as her eyes. But of all the gifts – perhaps even including the garnets – the simplicity of the lilies, and the message, pleased her the most.

  Thoughtfully, she drew the brush several times through her hair, then left it and pulled a chair up to a small French writing table standing near the window, to write a note of thanks (for he had sent the lilies via Hallam, and not brought them himself). It cost her a great deal of thought before she finally began: ‘My dearest boy …’ She hesitated about how she should sign it and finally wrote, simply, ‘Yours with the greatest love and affection, B,’ and enclosed it in an envelope.

  Presently, she rang for Hallam to run her bath and help her dress. She gave her the envelope. Her mood had swung again and she was feeling suddenly suffused with happiness for all the world. “Oh, clear up all this mess, will you, while I have my bath – and don’t forget to keep those lilies topped up with water. See what the master has given me! I shall wear them tonight with my new gown. They might have been bought with it in mind. Though of course the emeralds would have looked absolutely wonderful,” she added as an afterthought. “Clever of him, though, especially since he hasn’t seen the dress yet. Are you sure you haven’t shown it to him? No, of course you haven’t, Clara!” She laughed.

  “Indeed not,” said Hallam stiffly, outraged that the master’s gift was being treated with such scant regard … Mr Jardine, so kind and considerate as he always was. She, for one, would never hear a word said against him. Nor would she ever forget how he’d agreed to take on Fred as his chauffeur and give him another chance after that spot of bother he’d been in: Fred, that bad, handsome lad who was her youngest step-brother, her favourite because he’d always stuck up for her against her bullying stepfather.

  With infinite care she replaced the garnets in their appointed places in the velvet-lined box.

  Immediately following Beatrice’s agreement that the guest wing should, after all, be decorated in the Egyptian manner, scenes of great activity had ensued, with Rose Jessamy, in smock and breeches like a boy, taking charge and ordering everyone about. The rooms were cleared and stripped, ready for action. Only the bare minimum of furniture for comfort would be retained when they were finished. Beds would have new bed-heads and feet, rather like the profile of a Nile boat. Fireplaces were to be torn out and if necessary replaced with new. Servants were allocated to help her, with Fred Copley, chauffeur/handyman, sent to assist, and proving himself particularly useful – when he wasn’t covertly ogling RJ. While Wycombe, with increasing gravity, went around inspecting and assessing the pictures in the rest of the house, the work here had already begun and swift progress made, despite the number of people, Amory included, who constantly appeared and got in the way, widening their eyes at the apparent mess which preceded the actual painting.

  “Are you sure that young woman knows what she’s doing?” Amory had demanded of Beatrice in some trepidation, after he had looked in to see how the work was progressing the first day, taken one horrified glance and withdrawn hastily. “She’s got the plaster off the walls and I don’t know what!”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about it.” Beatrice had now decided to be Miss Jessamy’s greatest advocate, having been vouchsafed these glimpses of what the finished rooms might look like. One couldn’t help but admire her artistry, the sureness of her sweeping brushstrokes, and the speed and concentration with which she worked, ripping off the old plaster and replacing it with new – for each day’s work on the frescoes she was painting round the walls, she explained, must be done directly on to fresh, wet plaster. What pleased Beatrice most was her discovery that the trompe l’oeil marble columns and pediments were going to render the spacious rooms even more spacious, with false perspectives that lent distance and enchantment, that the whole thing would be, in fact, far from the unrestrained riot of exuberant images she had feared, but dignified and elegant, exactly like some of the illustrations in the books from the library which had stood on the shelves, unopened, for decades, and which Rose had found and shown her to demonstrate how it would look. And how much kudos all this was going to bring Beatrice amongst her friends!

  The birthday celebrations took the form of an evening reception, and the guests were around seventy in number. A thoroughly egalitarian affair it was to be, embracing neighbours as well as close friends, in line with Amory’s liberal principles, even to the inclusion of the rector and his wife, though that was perfectly acceptable, for the lady was the daughter of a general. A cabinet minister graced the occasion, and two of Amory’s colleagues came with their wives – and in one case a daughter, a lively and charming girl called Coralie, of whom Beatrice had great hopes for Marcus.

  Marcus had done the right thing and given Beatrice the names of several of his friends who could be invited to become acquainted with his sisters, and the young folk crowded together and laughed and flirted and some of the young men drank enough to make them noisy, but not overly so. Their elders strolled about the lawns with ladies on their arms, also flirting, though more discreetly, and admiring the roses (though no one saw a Rosa Perfecta). The champagne flowed and was excellent – Amory could never be faulted in that direction. And of course the food was plentiful: on the supper-room table the salmon’s cucumber scales gleamed under aspic, the beef was red and juicy as the gentlemen preferred it; the bowls of peaches, grapes, nectarines and figs had been brought to a high point of perfection through Hopper’s solicitous tending; there were patties and pies, pastries, cakes and jellies, and three splendid ice puddings if you didn’t care for strawberries.

  Bertie had brought his family – his mother and the two Ugly Sisters, who sat together without moving, looking down their noses at all this extravagance and doing their best to put a damper on the occasion – but no one too
k any notice of them, except Marcus, who had excellent manners and brought them strawberries and cream, and the champagne to toast Beatrice, which they mostly left untasted.

  “Oh, Jerusalem, what frights they are! Glowering away in corners, making one feel one must apologise for them all the time!” Vita hissed to Harriet. “If I’d known what they were like, I might have had second thoughts about Bertie. Imagine, if one has a daughter like Etta!”

  “You know you would have done no such thing,” replied Harriet, watching Vita smiling ravishingly at her beloved across the room, for a moment envious of her, being so openly and unashamedly in love – even though it was with Bertie.

  “Perhaps you’re right. Do look at Millie! Did ever you see such feathers and tulle? But at least that headdress is better than the hat she wore for Cousin Kitty’s wedding! I’m sure that was a whole duck, not just its wings, sitting on it, and perhaps its nest, too! Maybe it weighed her down permanently, and that’s why she’s still looking so miserable!”

  Millie was indeed looking less vivacious than formerly, under her astonishing headdress, as she talked to Iskander, whom she had of course met before. Beatrice had been in two minds as to whether to invite her, but in the end had decided it would be wiser to do so than not. “She won’t come, but she’ll be pleased to have been invited,” she’d asserted confidently. Having her own particular reasons for not antagonising Millie, Beatrice still received her, unlike many other hostesses, for Millie had very recently been involved in an open scandal, so notorious it had caused even the compliant Glendinning, accustomed to turning a blind eye, to take the ultimate step and sue for divorce. She was still technically Lady Glendinning, not yet plain Mrs Kaplan, if ever she would be – but, poor Millie, if only she had been discreet for a little longer! If only she could have known that not a month after the decree nisi, Glendinning would die of an apoplexy, leaving his vast fortune to a distant cousin! By doing exactly what she wanted all her life, Millie had succeeded in losing what she most desired. Moreover, Mr Kaplan, who was a banker, was said to be rich, but not so rich as Glendinning, though in truth he was almost as boring.

  Millie, however, had accepted Beatrice’s invitation. It was a mistake on various levels. For one thing, she was being cut by most of the people there, though a few were coldly acknowledging her in deference to their hostess. For another, Millie could not now stand comparison with Beatrice. People who knew them both knew that they were the same age, but unlike Beatrice, who ripened ever more lusciously as she grew older (though her critics said there was a danger that she might at any time become a little overblown, like a rose which has been open too long), Millie was shrivelling. She looked slightly desiccated, and her once-discreet make up had become heavy-handed and careless. Perhaps, too, she had grown shortsighted - one cheek was very much rosier than the other, like an apple that had caught the sun only on one side. Her patchouli perfume could be discerned yards away. Her attempts at youthfulness made her look clownish, and rather sad.

  “She ought not to be allowed out in daylight,” remarked Daisy, joining them.

  “Oh, Daisy!” scolded elder sister Vita, but laughing, unable to hide her amusement. Then, “Ah, there’s darling Dolly!”

  “In that case please excuse me,” Harriet said, rolling her eyes. Dolly Dacres was Vita’s dearest friend, who was to be one of her bridesmaids and who was to be married herself, to a rising young man in the Foreign Office, a month after Vita. “With the two of you together talking weddings, there’ll be no getting a word in edgeways.”

  “I haven’t seen you all day, where have you been hiding yourself?” Beatrice asked Kit.

  “Oh, I borrowed Wycombe’s motor and took myself out for a spin. I couldn’t stand all the fuss going on here.”

  “And he allowed you to? You surprise me.”

  “Oh, he’ll do anything for me,” Kit said carelessly. With an odd little smile twisting his lips he glanced to where Wycombe was standing, for the moment alone.

  Beatrice conceded, reluctantly, that this was true. She said rather sharply, “Well, it was too bad of you to disappear, on my birthday, but did you get my note about the lilies? Thank you, my dear, a perfectly charming present.”

  “Not as charming as the recipient,” said Kit. “You look like a lily yourself tonight.”

  Beatrice smiled, deciding to accept the flattery for what it was worth. She knew she was looking her best in the new oyster silk crêpe-de-chine from Paquin, with a black velvet rose tucked in where the deep vee neck met the high, self-embroidered waistband. She had to glide, rather than walk, a gracious white swan, for the skirt of the dress was fashionably narrow at the ankles, with only a kick of short pleats in a triangular godet to one side, a necessity to enable her to move at all. She carried a black silk fan, her sculpted, silver-gilt hair gleamed, and Clara Hallam had skilfully used the new hair ornament to anchor a cluster of black feathers into it to further show it off. The garnets glowed like fire against her voluptuous bosom.

  “Should you like some more strawberries?” Kit asked.

  “No, thank you. I should have liked to have gone with you when you took Wycombe’s motorcar out, though. There’s been no peace here today.”

  “I wish I’d known. We could have driven off into the wide blue yonder and never come back,” said Kit, fully aware that he had drunk one glass of champagne too many and was perhaps going beyond what was acceptable.

  Apparently not. “What fun!” Beatrice laughed. “But Harriet would never have forgiven us.”

  Suddenly, the banter had vanished. They were skating on the edge of very thin ice indeed. “Where is Harriet?” Beatrice asked abruptly.

  “I don’t know. She’s got her sights on me to help with this entertainment they’re getting up. Oh Lord, there she is, I must go.” He raised her hand to his lips, blue eyes gazed into blue for a full half-minute. He was not quite sure whether he heard, or imagined, her whisper, “Later,” for she had already turned her head.

  Halfway through the festivities the daughters of the house disappeared and presently the guests were urged to assemble under the trees whose leaves trembled in the hot, breathless evening, in front of the folly, down by the lake. There, little gilt chairs had been set out in rows before a curtain, looking suspiciously like the one from the old nursery, which had been rigged up between two elms. From behind it issued muttered whispers and smothered laughs, until Marcus started up his gramophone and the curtains parted.

  Later, Harriet wrote in her notebook:

  We managed to get through the tableau without disaster, despite my fears. Daisy looked fresh as a flower and Vita perfectly lovely, though nothing could make any of us look like a goddess. Vita in particular is too warm and too – well, earthy, and her eyes danced at Bertie all the time we kept up our pose, which we were in fact able to do for several minutes before Marcus started his gramophone and Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ began. This was the signal for us to come to life, and we danced in a circle, as gracefully as we could manage, until Kit and Marcus drew the curtain on us, to a storm of applause and shouts of “The ‘Three Graces’! Bravo!” Gratifying, even though it was mostly out of politeness. Mama was looking so happy, smiling and clapping, with the lovely garnets Papa had given her glittering against that gleaming oyster silk.

  And then, as the music continued, Daisy danced off the ‘stage’, waving her arms about, followed by Vita and me, and we all went quite mad. The guests joined in, even Teddy Cranfield danced with – or rather dragged around – poor, lumpy Selina Horsley, and Miss Jessamy, who had been sitting a little to one side, doing sketches of people, was pulled to her feet by Marcus. She barely comes to his shoulder. I would have loved to see those sketches she’d been doing, but when I asked, she said, quite politely, that they were only for her own amusement. Bertie, of course, danced with Vita, and Daisy danced by herself until one of the Houghton-Vesey boys beat his brother to claiming her after only a moment or two. I wasn’t surprised. She looked ravishingly pretty. M
ama had better look to her laurels when her youngest daughter is launched into society.

  Kit whirled me around for a while and then went off in search of more champagne, though he’d already had enough, and I was very much afraid I was going to be paired off with Mr Iskander. Oh, misery! as Daisy would have said. He was the spectre at the feast tonight, looking bored and sulky, except when I had caught a glimpse of him near the backstairs, deep in conversation with – Hallam, of all people.

  How very odd, I reflected, until I remembered that Hallam had been with Mama on that Egyptian tour they had taken, so they would be acquainted. Perhaps they were talking about Egypt. He is rather a bore on the subject of his own country and its proud civilisation, but it is the only thing which one can find to talk to him about, and the only time he becomes animated. Although I cannot find it in me to like him, he is such a fish out of water that I can’t help feeling a little sorry for him – though not when I think of those eyes, which can be so – merciless, is the word that comes immediately to mind. Is that why Mama sometimes seems so uneasy in his presence, and avoids him whenever she can? Possibly he and Hallam were commiserating with each other – he was obviously not enjoying himself, and she had taken umbrage at being detailed to be on hand with smelling salts for any of the ladies who were overcome by the heat, and a needle and thread ready in case of small, necessary repairs.

  I escaped and went across to Papa who was standing a little apart, in the dusk, his eyes on the dancers. “You look very solemn, Papa. Why don’t you dance with Mama again?”