by Georgia Hill
Flora greeted us with a surprising enthusiasm. ‘Henrietta, darling, how are you?’ she gushed. ‘It’s been simply an age. And dearest Edward too.’
She leaned in for a kiss and Edward complied. I was rather startled and assumed it was London manners. Flora had taken advantage of the London fashions too. She had on a white skirt so narrow I was frightened she would trip, let alone be able to dance. She wore, in her hair, a matching feather, which rivalled even Edward’s height. All pleasure in my own dress fled. I was reminded of her as she was when waiting for the hunt to begin, when she flirted with Richard. She looked to be on the hunt tonight, but I suspected her prey was not the fox. Richard had returned from hunting with her earlier in the day. He had been muddied and glowing with bloodlust, his forehead having been bloodied in the traditional manner for a first kill. I had hated the metallic odour that had lingered on him.
‘You don’t mind if I borrow Edward for a moment, do you Henrietta?’ Flora was now saying. ‘Mother and Pa would so like to speak with him.’ With that, she ushered Edward to the side of the room, where her parents stood. I was left standing on the expensive Axminster, feeling – and looking – like an ingénue. If I were to secure Edward, I might have to try harder.
‘Hello, Hetty,’ said Richard, behind me.
I turned, I hadn’t heard him enter the room. I gasped at the sight of him. He was wearing white tie too, but wore it in cruel comparison to Edward. Whereas the older brother looked smart and distinguished, Richard looked utterly and devastatingly handsome. I’d seen him rarely since Easter. When not in London with the Parkers, he spent his time here on their estate, riding with David and Lawrie.
Richard’s blue eyes shone as he grinned. ‘All alone, Cinderella? Let me help you to some punch.’ He took my arm and led me to where the punch bowl sat gleaming on a side table.
‘Richard,’ I exclaimed. ‘We cannot have that. Isn’t it alcohol?’
He made a face. ‘When did you become so unadventurous? That’s not the Hetty I know.’ He filled two cups so generously that some of the liquid slopped out onto the snowy cloth. He held one out to me, as a challenge.
I looked about. Not one person was giving us any attention. Giving Richard a scowl, I took the cup from him and sipped. ‘It’s delicious,’ I admitted.
He drank his down in one and then poured another. He was a different person tonight. At once much older but still childish in his dares. I took another sip of my punch and felt it warm me. I decided I liked alcohol. At one end of the drawing room I became aware of movement as the Parkers began to escort their guests to the ballroom.
Richard held out his arm, ‘May I have the honour? Let me take you, Cinders, to the dance.’ Then he reverted to a school boy again as he looked over to where Flora had her arm through Edward’s. ‘Looks as if Flora has Edward ensnared good and proper!’ He gazed at me, with a strange expression. ‘Come along, Henrietta, you can be mine tonight instead.’
I took his arm, feeling a little dazed by all his glamour. The punch had made my head feel muzzy, but not unpleasantly so. Smiling up into his wicked blue eyes, I let him take me.
As we entered the ballroom, I remembered Aunt Hester telling me once that the hunt ball used to be the privilege of the Trenchards. The Delamere ballroom had long since fallen into such a state of disrepair as to render it unusable. I had begun to say that Richard and I had once danced in the old ballroom. Aunt Leonora had glared so fiercely at this, it made any further disclosures impossible.
The ballroom I now entered, on Richard’s arm, couldn’t have been more different to the one he and I had played in. It ran the entire length of the west wing of the house and, as a statement of wealth, could not have been bolder. More creams and yellows decorated it, with several electrically lit chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. An orchestra was already playing, situated on a dais at one end. Gossips had it that the Parkers had overstepped the mark in offering to host the ball – the temerity of new money! However, looking about me and seeing many familiar faces, I could see most people had no qualms about accepting their invitation.
It was impossibly elegant and a world away from Delamere.
Richard escorted me to where Flora stood with her parents.
He turned to me and said, ‘Regretfully, I am already promised to Flora for the first dance.’ He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it, giving me a veiled look. ‘I will seek you out later in the evening.’
I murmured something in return to the Parkers’ greetings and then Edward claimed my hand for a dance.
‘Do you remember, long ago, that afternoon in the summer house?’ he said with a smile, as we swirled around the floor. It was a waltz and therefore straightforward. A relief, as I was not very practised.
Edward’s dancing, on the other hand, had improved vastly since he had been in London. Obviously he had had much opportunity for socialising. I wondered, as I looked up at him, with whom he had been dancing. The hollow feeling, that I was the one always left behind, returned.
I thought back to that wintry afternoon when I had fled Richard’s joke and had been found by Edward, my saviour. I blushed.
‘Sorry, old girl, didn’t mean to embarrass you.’
‘You didn’t.’ I smiled. ‘I was very young then.’
‘Not so old now.’ He was trying hard to be gallant.
I shook my head. ‘Of course not. But older.’
Edward nodded. ‘Older. And most beautiful tonight.’ He coughed. He really didn’t do this sort of chat well. Perhaps London life had not afforded him all that much social opportunity after all?
I felt my blush deepen. I was honest enough to admit that, despite my fine feathers, I was still something of an ugly duckling. I looked over to where Flora Parker was dancing with Richard. In her white dress, she looked truly beautiful. And, judging from the way Richard was holding her, he thought so too. Then he glanced over her shoulder and to me and something odd happened. Our eyes met and held. It made me feel most queer inside.
The dance ended and Edward, having led me to the tables, was gathered in by Flora and her academic uncle, eager to quiz him on university life.
At once, Richard was at my side, helping himself, this time, to champagne. He drank, all the time staring at me. I thought him rude. Then he said, ‘Hetty, you are looking rather splendid tonight. That is a most remarkable frock,’ which took the sting away from his lack of manners.
He took another flute of champagne and turned to me with a wicked grin. It made his eyes sparkle.
‘Thank you,’ I said and was quite proud of my grown-up performance. ‘May I return the compliment?’
‘Of course.’ He pursed his lips, bent closer and whispered, ‘My suit is Lawrie Parker’s cast off. But don’t tell Leonora, she’d have forty fits.’ He posed, ‘A Trenchard-Lewis does not accept charity!’
It was such an accurate impersonation of our waspish aunt I giggled.
I knew he spent a deal of time with the Parkers in London, along with Edward. The four boys were great pals. I tried to imagine what sort of life it was. The Parker offspring were all rather glamorous. And, as the invitation had not included me, imagination was the only tool I had. Richard had changed. He looked as if some of the Parker worldliness had rubbed off onto him. He was far taller than I, with broad shoulders and the Trenchard long legs. He motioned to the footman, who passed me a glass of champagne.
I sipped it. My first taste of champagne! It was not as sweet as the punch and the bubbles tickled my nose. ‘What was it like in London?’ I tried to keep the longing out of my voice.
‘It was great fun. He glanced at Flora; she smiled knowingly at him and then returned to her conversation.
I followed the look. Swallowing the rest of the champagne far too quickly, I said, ‘Flora is looking very up to the minute.’
‘Oh, yes, Flora is up to all sorts. What a bricky girl she is!’ He looked over again to where she and her uncle were having an animated discussion with Edward. ‘Ca
n’t say I thought she’d set her cap at Ed.’
‘Has she?’ I was startled.
‘Poor Hetty. Are you still marked out for him? I thought that idea had been scuppered long ago.’
‘As I recall,’ I said stiffly, ‘you were the one who put the idea into my head.’
Richard took my hand and studied it. ‘Well, what was I to think? You arrived with due ceremony, to join us waifs and strays.’
‘And you listened to the servants’ talk!’ I interrupted.
With another, impossibly fiendish wicked grin, he lifted my hand again and kissed it lightly. He bowed. ‘I own that I did.’
I snatched my hand away. It burned where his mouth had touched it. ‘You seem to have learned some interesting manners. Is this the London influence?’
‘The Parkers do seem to run with a rather fast crowd, it’s true.’ He took my empty glass, placed it on the table behind us and began to lead me to the dance floor. ‘A dance, Hetty? You will see that it is another thing I learned at the Parkers’.’
I let him lead me to the dance floor. There was something hypnotic about him tonight; he seemed older than his years and far more sophisticated than I. Harder. If this was the “London effect” I wasn’t at all sure I was sad to have missed it.
Richard placed his hand on my waist and I felt it only too clearly through the thin material of my gown. I had already taken off my gloves and, with my usual carelessness, had lost them somewhere. I regretted this now as Richard held my hand in his. The skin-on-skin contact was disquieting. As we began the dance he pulled me closer until my breasts rubbed against his jacket and I could feel his breath hot on my cheek. This was so very different to when we danced in the ballroom at Delamere. We were playing at it then. This felt as though it was grown-up stuff. Serious.
We danced wordlessly. I did not nod and smile at acquaintances as we passed them, as I had when dancing with Edward. I was only aware of Richard’s body pressed against mine and his mouth so near.
When the band finished and we had duly applauded, Richard once again took my hand but, this time, led me through the French doors and into the darkened garden. It must have been cold but I didn’t feel it. I was no longer the tomboyish older cuckoo in the nest and Richard was certainly no longer the mischievous, teasing boy I had grown up with. Something had happened to change him and I was certain it had happened in London. He was the adult and I the raw girl.
The night was frosted silver and the sky was clear and a dense, frozen black. I stumbled and wordlessly he put an arm around me and hugged me close. He took me to the bare branches and thorns of the rose arch. And I let him. I followed, as I had always done. I followed where he led. We had begun this pattern as children and now we continued it. This time, though, it was a more serious game. He drew me nearer, even more tightly against him and I felt his long body hot against mine.
‘Hetty,’ he said it on a suggestion of a whisper. ‘How I’ve longed to do this.’
He slid a hand across my shoulder, my neck, cupping my head and bringing it closer to his. Our mouths were within inches and then his lips descended.
My first kiss!
It began gently. Richard knew what to do. His lips against mine felt delicious, smooth and sweet. I drank in his kisses, enraptured, curious. Strange excited urgings welled deep within me and instinct led my hands to search under his jacket and across his hot back. I heard him groan as if in pain. His lips left my mouth bereft and began to explore my skin. My head fell back as if my neck were too weak to hold it and I trembled. I felt Richard’s hot mouth move – to my ear, my collarbone, to where my breasts swelled. He held me hard against him, his arm strong against my back. His mood changed. I felt teeth nipping. His hand rose to hold my breast and he caressed it. The trembling increased and my knees buckled. My head swam, but from the champagne or Richard’s caresses, I could not tell. Did not care. He groaned again and muttered something. His mouth traced a path downwards, nudging aside the flimsy gauze and finding flesh. The shock sent a sharp need through me. I hardly knew what I wanted or how I was to obtain it.
I knew I had to stop.
It wasn’t right, it couldn’t be. I pushed at him, but at the same time shutting my eyes to better drink in the ecstasy. And yet, I knew I had to put an end to this.
‘Hetty,’ Richard murmured. ‘Please let me.’
His hand was now at my side, gathering the material of my skirt and raising it.
‘Richard! No!’ I gathered every ounce of strength and all my will power and shoved him away. ‘Stop. Please stop!’
He stood apart from me, swaying, his eyes glazed. More drunk than I thought.
I pulled my dress back into place with shaking fingers. ‘I … I … we shouldn’t have done that.’
He shook his head, as if to gather his senses. ‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Why shouldn’t we have done that? Didn’t it feel good, Hetty? Admit it, it’s the most marvellous thing.’
He began to come closer again. I raised my hands as a barrier. ‘No!’
He stopped, a disgusted expression creeping over his face. ‘You can’t say you didn’t enjoy it,’ he sneered. ‘I felt you, I felt you respond.’
I shook my head. Had I enjoyed it? I was too confused to pick apart exactly how I felt. I took a step forward. ‘Richard I –’
‘You’re just like Edward,’ he said in disgust. ‘Neither of you willing to step into the unknown, to try things. You’ll deny yourself and your feelings, won’t you Hetty?’ He came to me again, but this time in anger. ‘Marry him, then, Hetty.’ He took my elbow in his hand, in a vice-like grip. ‘Marry him,’ he snarled, his eyes hooded in rage. ‘You deserve one another.’ He turned and strode away, disappearing into the dark.
I stared into the blackness long after he had disappeared and held my arm. I would have bruises later.
The rest of the dance passed in a blur. I danced with Edward again, made small-talk with some of the other guests, drank too much champagne and felt numb inside. Richard had disappeared.
I wondered, for a long time afterwards, whether that been the beginning of what was to come. That I had somehow been the cause of Richard’s decline.
Hetty rubbed some life back into her writing hand. Did she really want anyone to read this? Why would they want to? And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to destroy what had just caused her so much pain to write. With trembling fingers, she folded the paper into two, firming down the creases. Rising stiffly, from sitting too long, she fetched a kitchen knife and made a slit in the lining of the book she had bought to make her journal. Sliding the papers into their hiding hole, she closed it and then laid her head on her hands in a sort of prayer for forgiveness.
Chapter 21
Rachel lay back on the sofa, puzzled. Hetty had married Edward, having been kissed so passionately by his brother. It didn’t make sense.
‘Did you really marry Edward simply to please Hester?’
Hetty’s ghost declined to answer.
Richard seemed an odd mix of wilful and disobedient boy and charismatic youth. And certainly remarkably self-assured. Rachel shook her head, it was wrong to force her like that. Hetty had been such an innocent.
She remembered the photograph of a man on horseback. It had to be Richard. Unearthing it from under the pile of letters, she stared at the image. He must have been tall, she decided, looking at the length of his legs, and he was broad-shouldered and athletic- looking. Picking up Hetty and Edward’s wedding photograph, she looked from Hetty to Richard. She had a nice face, with the snub nose she so despised. But it was as nothing to Richard’s beauty. Dark hair cut short, but with a lock over his forehead giving a rakish look, matched by a wide grin and devilish eyes. Hetty would have been an easy victim to this boy’s charms. She hadn’t had a chance.
‘So Hetty,’ she said to the empty room, ‘if you were so attracted to your Richard, why did you go and marry Edward?’
The room, again, remained frustratingly silent.
Rach
el glanced at Gabe, now sleeping beside her. She hadn’t the heart to wake him, so she tucked the rug over him and left him in peace.
Hunting through the morass of papers, Rachel found some more scraps of diary entries. Unfolding them, she began to read, hardly wanting to. It would be awful to see Edward mentioned, knowing he did not survive.
Tuesday, October 13th, 1914
Dull weather. Our beautiful summer seems but a distant memory.
We are in full War Fever! The newspapers are filled with Hun atrocities. Leonora reads them out with horrible relish and they make Hester turn pale and sick. I wish Leonora would not do it, but it seems to be the one thing she holds on to, as if she cannot quite bring herself to think of her boy out there. If it is indeed true that the Germans are bayoneting babies, and worse, then I hope Edward will acquit himself and do his best. Oh, but it is hard to think of my husband being ‘At War’. At least he has his Egyptian experience to rely upon; he is certainly not some callow youth.
Sam has also ‘gone to be a soldier’, in the words of Dorcas. As has Robert. Recruiting sergeants were in Hereford and they took the King’s shilling on Saturday, along with Sidney Knight and Gerald Trainor from the Parker estate. Glorious boys, doing service for King and country! It is all very thrilling.
I admit to being selfish in praying Albert will not go, for who, then, will look after Snowy? I am to help out as best I can. Elsie is back with us at last; it has been impossible to manage without her. She seems recovered from her illness, but it has taken a time and Hester will insist on being vague with the details. As if I cared when my husband is at the Front!
Hester and I give our thanks, daily, that Richard stays up at Oxford. It will not be long before he goes, however, as he so loves an adventure. I am piqued that he does not return my letters. He has still not forgiven me, although I continue to write. I cannot bear the thought of him going to war angry with me. Silly boy.
