* * *
Distant thunder still rolled around the house when Edie woke from fitful sleep the next morning. Dreams both erotic and disturbing broke into elusive fragments. She needed a glass of water urgently.
Sipping at it, she revisited the night’s events and tried to predict how they would affect the day. Was it all lost with Charles? The thought was an unwelcome wrench, a churn of the stomach. But why should it be? If he would leave both her and Lady Deverell alone, then surely she had the result she wanted?
She dressed hurriedly, yawning, and went to take her station in Lady Deverell’s chambers.
‘Good morning, my lady,’ she said, nervous at addressing the sleepy face on its silken pillow. She had the most absurd presentiment that Lady Deverell knew – knew everything, about Charles, about her, about their relationship. Keeping a cool head was going to be difficult today.
‘Mm, is it morning already?’
Lady Deverell turned her face away and pulled the covers higher.
‘If you’d like to sleep later –’
‘No, no, don’t go. My bath. I’ll be ready directly.’
It was only then that Edie realised Lord Deverell was not in the bed with her. Perhaps her dread of his ‘bedroom face’ had been misplaced?
But, once Lady Deverell was bathed and dressed, she confirmed that Lord Deverell had indeed come to her room.
‘I thought I might find him here,’ confided Edie, trying her level best to drag a comb through her mistress’s luxuriant locks.
‘Oh, he never stays. He snores, you see. I send him packing. The sheets will need to be changed, if you don’t mind seeing to it.’
‘Oh – of course.’
‘I know it should be a housemaid’s job but it feels too … intimate, somehow. I prefer to have my lady’s maid do it. That way, only two of us know the truth of the matter, rather than the whole house.’
‘Well, three, really,’ said Edie unthinkingly, but this seemed to displease Lady Deverell, who pursed her lips.
And when Charles visits, nobody can gossip about how the sheets needed washing, even though Lord Deverell was away. Edie thought Lady Deverell’s preciousness was more about practising deception with ease than about fine scruples. Did she blame her? Should she?
She found it easier to blame Charles.
The thought of him made her wrench the comb a little too forcefully, so that it snagged in her mistress’s hair.
‘Ouch! Watch it!’
The door opened and, before she could turn around, Edie saw Charles in the dressing-table mirror. He wasn’t dressed and looked rumpled and louche, his dressing gown untied at the waist, his dark hair standing straight up. There were shadows under his eyes and somehow they made him look even more desirable.
Edie’s fingers shook as they closed around the comb.
‘I thought you were out,’ said Lady Deverell, a satisfied cat-with-the-cream smile on her face.
‘Town was a bore. Came back early. Good God, girl, what are you doing?’
He took the comb from Edie, brushing against her hand in the process. She stepped back sharply, a shock flashing through her.
‘Don’t you know how to brush this incredible hair?’
‘Charlie, you mustn’t. You shouldn’t even be in here, you bad boy. What if Hugh comes in?’
But Lady Deverell’s reproaches were idle enough and she bent her head back, deriving pleasure from his skill with the comb. He put it aside and began to use the hairbrush instead, teasing the auburn mane into submission.
‘You see, Edie,’ he said, lifting his hooded eyes towards her in the mirror. ‘Gently does it. No need for force.’
She was transfixed, unable to speak, finding the simple action of his brushing Her Ladyship’s hair unbearably erotic. She wanted him to brush her hair, to touch her skin, to lay her down, to finish what he started last night.
His hand reached forward to gather Lady Deverell’s hair into his fist, but before he could, she sniffed abruptly and frowned. She seized his hand and put his fingers to her nose, then she slapped his wrist so hard that Edie flinched.
‘Alley cat,’ she snarled. ‘Get out of here.’
Edie saw her cheeks flood with crimson, horribly aware that what Lady Deverell had scented on her lover’s fingers was her.
‘She said much the same thing,’ drawled Charles, moving away at his own unhurried pace, with a glance over his shoulder at Edie. ‘Seems my luck’s out.’
Thankfully, Lady Deverell was beyond paying any attention to Edie’s blushing confusion. She threw the brush after Charles, hitting the door as he shut it, then bunched her fists and banged them on the dressing-table.
‘The bastard,’ she said in a choking voice. ‘The utter swine. I don’t know why I …’ She buried her face in her arms and remained like that for a long time while Edie sat on the windowsill, waiting for strength to return to her limbs.
Was this a message to her? A sign that he relinquished his hold on Lady Deverell, for her sake? Or was it simple clumsy coincidence that he had not bothered to wash his hands and been found out?
Lady Deverell raised her head and directed teary eyes at the mirror, looking towards Edie’s perch.
‘You know what the really pathetic thing is?’ she said. ‘The thing that makes me hate myself and hate him more than anything? I’ll forgive him. I’ll spend a few days picturing him with whichever tart he’s had his way with and … then I’ll want him so badly I’ll swallow my pride and go back to him.’ She shut her eyes and seemed to be trying to keep some outburst of emotion at bay for a moment. Without opening them again, she said, ‘Don’t fall in love, Edie. Don’t ever fall in love.’
She could think of a number of responses to this, but none of them would improve Lady Deverell’s mood, so she held her tongue.
After a few moments, Lady Deverell appeared to make an effort to shake her head clear of her jealous rage and sorrow and smiled, rather thinly, at Edie.
‘Do come away from the window. I don’t bite. I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes I feel so lonely here …’
Edie rushed over to her and seized the brush, ready to complete her task.
‘Oh, don’t be lonely. You have me. You’ll always have me,’ she said, cursing her impulsiveness a moment later when Lady Deverell cast her a curious glance.
‘Always? Do you really think so?’
‘Well … perhaps.’ Trying to deflect attention from her awkward outburst, she took up a section of hair and pulled the brush through it over and over with compulsive rapidity.
‘I say, you don’t have a pash, do you? On me? You wouldn’t be the first …’
‘Oh, gosh, nothing of the sort. Really, I spoke without thinking. Please, don’t mind me.’
‘There was an exquisite little creature who played Hermia to my Helena once. She was always finding excuses to embrace and touch and kiss. Eventually she confessed that she loved me to distraction. It was terribly awkward. Lovely girl, but … You aren’t that way inclined?’
‘No.’
‘And you don’t have a sweetheart?’
‘No.’
‘Why ever not? Pretty thing like you should have a sweetheart.’
‘I thought I wasn’t to fall in love, my lady.’
Lady Deverell laughed. ‘Yes, that’s right. I can’t have it both ways, can I? But I suppose some men aren’t bastards. If only one could meet them.’
Papa isn’t a bastard. You met him.
‘Well,’ said Edie with an attempt at briskness, ‘I suppose if one must spend one’s life looking after a person, it had better be a person like you. Husbands cannot wear such glorious gowns and I suppose they want laundry done and potatoes peeled and so forth. I think my life here far superior to that.’
‘You’re a sensible girl, when you want to be,’ said Lady Deverell approvingly. ‘Oh, dash it, I can’t face breakfast if he’s going to be down there. Would you go and ask for an egg to be brought up, and coffee?’
‘Of course, my lady. But your hair?’
‘We’ll see to it later.’
***
Edie half-expected Charles to leap out at her from every corner as she made her way to the kitchens; but he was nowhere to be found. Instead, she was intercepted on the back staircase by Ted Kempe, in full uniform.
‘Hello, stranger,’ he said, tipping his cap and standing back against the wall to let her pass. ‘How’s things up there above stairs?’
‘Lovely, thank you,’ she said, eyeing her escape route. ‘How are you?’
‘Still pretty cut up about the other day, as it goes. Charlie Deverell was up to something, and I think it might have started with E.’
‘Oh, don’t, I have nothing to do with him.’
‘See that you don’t, love. He’s poison. Listen, what about a rematch?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your next afternoon off. See if we can get as far as the picture palace this time?’
‘Oh, I don’t know… Her Ladyship hasn’t said anything about afternoons off … I suppose I still get one.’
‘Course you do. Or there’s a dance up in Kingsreach next week for the bank holiday – a few of us are going, if you fancy it.’
‘I’ll see.’
‘I hope you can. Save a space for me on your dance card, won’t you?’
He winked and made haste up the stairs, leaving Edie to her task.
***
When she returned to Lady Deverell’s chambers with the breakfast, she broached the subject of her afternoon off.
‘You get every afternoon off as it is,’ said Lady Deverell, cracking the top of her egg with her teaspoon. ‘Good heavens, girl. What more do you want?’
‘But would I be free to leave the house?’
‘If I told you I wasn’t going to need you, yes.’
‘And if I said I had business in town on one particular afternoon – could you undertake not to need me then?’
‘I really couldn’t say. What business might you have in town anyway?’
‘Oh … nothing. It was merely a hypothetical question.’
‘Merely a hypothetical question? Where did you learn these expressions, Edie?’
‘From my father.’ She paused, waiting for Lady Deverell to ask about him. She did not. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘I’ve been invited to a dance. Would it be out of the question to attend?’
‘Who invited you?’
‘Kempe, the chauffeur.’
Lady Deverell laughed, a spoonful of egg halfway to her mouth.
‘Oh, he’s the housemaids’ favourite, isn’t he? Lovely, strapping young man – I can see why. And you have an eye for him, do you?’
‘He asked me, so it seems only polite …’
‘Only polite? You’d go to a dance with him because it would be bad manners not to? Oh dear, Edie. You aren’t a creature of passion, are you?’
You don’t know what I am.
‘What do you think?’ she urged. ‘Could I go?’
‘When is it?’
‘I’m not sure. Some time over the bank holiday weekend.’
Lady Deverell took a long time to chew and swallow her piece of egg white.
‘I’m not sure it’s convenient,’ she said. ‘We have a party staying here over that weekend. There will be lots of changes of clothes, driving out into the country, tennis and so on. I might need you rather a lot.’
‘I suppose it’s in the evening.’
‘I suppose it is. Well, I can’t promise anything. We’ll have to see.’
‘It isn’t important,’ said Edie, who was in two minds about whether going with Ted was a good idea anyway. ‘I’m not much of a dancer.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ exclaimed Lady Deverell. ‘Dancing is such a pleasure. If you like, I can teach you a few steps.’
‘Oh, really, it’s not necessary.’
‘Nonsense, I’d enjoy it. We’ll get Mary to play for us and take a few turns around the ballroom later. What fun. It will cheer me up. Don’t be shy – you’ll be helping me, honestly.’
***
Edie’s reservations had not quite melted away by the time Lady Deverell had persuaded Mary to take her place at the piano in one of the quieter back drawing rooms.
‘You must know the foxtrot,’ she enthused. ‘Such a fashionable dance, very popular in London. You really do not know it?’
Edie had watched, but never participated. She shook her head apologetically.
‘Mary, let’s try a slow one, shall we? Really, Edie, it’s not unlike a waltz but in four-four instead of three-four. Surely you know how to waltz?’
Edie showed, while Mary played with an impressive level of competence, exactly how inexperienced a dancer she was. Lady Deverell seemed to greatly enjoy having such a blank slate for a pupil, for she laughed almost the whole way through the dance, throwing her head back and seeming to have entirely forgotten her annoyance with her perfidious stepson.
Edie could not help joining in the giggles, even though she tutted at herself every time she tripped over Lady Deverell’s dainty foot or turned so awkwardly that she almost brought the pair of them over.
‘Did you ever see such a dancer?’ cried Lady Deverell to her stepdaughter. ‘Really, she reminds me of a young faun, on her legs for the first time, staggering all over the floor.’
Mary smiled tightly.
‘Really, I have no objections whatsoever, for this is the closest papa will let me come to a ball until Christmas, no doubt.’
‘Oh, Mary. I do feel for you. It is very hard of him. We shall have a marvellous ball when all our guests arrive.’
‘Old relics from papa’s days in the regiment, I suppose. Not a man under fifty to be seen. Apart from one’s brothers.’
‘I suppose you will not want to dance the tango, then?’
Lady Deverell smiled broadly at her stepdaughter.
‘Come, Mary, come and dance one with me. You do it so beautifully. Edie, I don’t suppose you play …?’
‘Actually, I do. A very little.’
She went to the piano, from which Mary had risen, apparently eager to take any chance of a turn around the floor, even with her stepmother.
‘I will take the male part,’ said Lady Deverell, ‘and Mary the female. Watch us, Edie, and then you can try your own hand at it. Or foot, I suppose.’
Edie barely watched the dancers, too absorbed in trying not to stumble over her playing, but when she looked up it was to see two beautiful women, dancing fluidly and seamlessly around each other, burning up the space between them almost as if they were real lovers.
She played several false notes in her hurry to banish the thought from her mind, but she knew that this image would come back to haunt her when she went to bed. If it could find space in her mind that was not occupied by thoughts of Charles, that was.
‘God,’ exclaimed Mary once the music ceased and she laid bent back over the arm of Lady Deverell. ‘You had all society at your feet and you came here.’
Lady Deverell stood straight and patted down her skirts, turning away from Mary’s breathless scrutiny.
‘We none of us know what we have while we have it,’ she said. ‘You want what I had. I wanted what you have. Do you think the world will ever allow us both?’
‘The world hates women,’ said Mary. ‘So it’s unlikely. Wouldn’t you say, Edie?’
Edie stood up from the piano, looking between the born Lady and the one who had been made so.
‘That is a gloomy outlook,’ she said. ‘We have the vote now. At least, Lady Deverell does. You and I are too young, of course. But I’m sure that will be remedied very soon. We have all seen how instrumental women were in keeping the country going during the war.’
‘You may have done,’ sniffed Mary. ‘I saw very little of it, being packed off to school in Switzerland for the duration.’
‘I suppose His Lordship thought to protect you.’
‘And yet how cheerily he waved his sons of
f to the Front.’
‘Come now,’ interrupted Lady Deverell, clapping her hands. ‘We are dancing, not moping in the grumps. Come to me, Edie, and show me how much of what you saw was taken in.’
‘Very little, I fear,’ she said.
She had barely spoken the words when Mary, back at the keyboard, clattered into an intense rhythm and Edie found herself seized in a close hold.
Much fumbling and tripping ensued, only coming to a halt when a male voice spoke over the gasps and giggles and mild swear words.
‘You need someone to show you how it’s really done.’
Mary slammed down the piano lid.
‘Oh, go away, Charlie. You always spoil the fun. This is a Ladies’ Excuse Me – no gentlemen required.’
‘Yes, but how is anyone supposed to learn the tango like that? Let me be the man – since I am.’
Charles stepped in from where he had been leaning on the door jamb, a look of sardonic fascination on his face.
‘Oh, I don’t think …’ said Edie, while Lady Deverell simply left the room, calling Edie after her.
She looked back at him, then at Mary, who was making a droll face at her brother, as if fascinated by the sudden froideur and wanting an explanation for it. Edie hoped to God he would not provide one, as she scurried away.
What could he tell her anyway? Surely she would not approve of his activities with her stepmother – a stepmother with whom she seemed to be on a reasonably friendly, if jealous, footing.
***
‘He wants to plague me,’ muttered Lady Deverell. ‘He will not succeed. I will have no dealings with him unless strictly unavoidable.’
From around the next corner, the master of the house appeared, so unexpectedly that, for a moment, he and his wife regarded each other with the native bristle of cats encountering each other on some dearly desired territory.
‘Ah, Ruby,’ he said eventually. ‘I have been looking for you. You weren’t at breakfast.’
‘I didn’t sleep well,’ she said. ‘A slight headache, no more.’
‘Splendid. I mean, that you aren’t ill, not that you slept badly, of course, ha ha.’
Edie feared Lady Deverell’s hostility must be obvious to her husband, she made such a scant effort to veil it.
‘What did you want?’
Justine Elyot Page 13
