“So, Miss Somerset,” he went on. “How are you finding the party?”
*****
It was difficult to discern his age due to the scar. He could have been anywhere between eight-and-twenty and eight-and-thirty as far as Eve could tell. He was a well-built man, and he held himself as though he had seen much of the world.
“It must have been awfully exciting,” Eve said.
“Daughter!” Mother exclaimed reproachfully. “I do not think Brigadier Appleyard wishes to speak of such things in such a setting as this, and I do think it is very inappropriate for you to ask.”
“Excuse me, Mother,” Eve said coldly. “I just inferred that Brigadier Appleyard may have wanted to converse on topics not directly related to plumage, but of course I could have been mistaken.”
Eve felt the small rebellion within her, the small pushing back against her mother’s propriety. She felt guilty, dangerous and excited at the same time. It was not a direct scandal, but it was most certainly inappropriate behavior.
“It is quite alright,” Brigadier Appleyard said at length. He looked at Eve as though he had just seen her for the first time. The other wallflowers had talked long and sincerely on the topic of flowers and the beauty of life and hyperbolic topics of that kind. This was the sort of thing, they had been taught, that men liked in a woman. For the most part they were right. But Brigadier Appleyard had not seemed interested at all.
“Miss Somerset, the war was not what would traditionally be called exciting. It was rather fearful, violent and jarring. It threw men about and made children of them. If I were to divulge the details, I am afraid His Grace would banish me from the premises. It was a nasty and brutal business.”
He looked around. Eve was open-eyed and eager. This was the most interesting thing a man had ever said to her. It had nothing at all to do with lovemaking and the faux-insight that that entails. This was true and more real that all of that. But Mother and Auntie and the other older women were staring at him sternly.
“This is not the topic for a ball, perhaps,” Brigadier Appleyard said. “In fact-”He abruptly he rose to his feet. “I must—apologize,” he said, tripping over his words. “I must—go. I am ever so sorry.” He was about to simply walk away, and then he remembered himself. He turned and bowed, and then walked briskly from the room.
What a fascinating man! Eve thought, smiling.
Auntie Alice whispered, “What a strange man!”
Mother whispered, “What a dangerous man!”
*****
Two months passed in the way it always did. Eve, Auntie and Mother attended social functions, and when they were not at some party or other, they were at home, in their small homestead on the outskirts of Wells, in Somerset. Father had only left them an income sufficient for one maidservant and so Auntie Alice also “pitched in” with the housework, something she was always bitter about. But being an unmarried and poor sister, she did not have much say in the matter.
Eve felt stifled by the smallness of their lives. Some days she found it difficult to fix her small smile to her face and converse with Auntie and Mother. Her mind was starved for excitement or enjoyment of some kind. She knew some women became used to and accepted their situation over time; and Eve was terrified that she would become one of those women. There was nothing she feared more than being so numbed to the beauty and terror of life that she did not care that she was missing out on it.
It was thus manna from heaven when the letter arrived. It was written in the short, blunt hand of a man used to writing military reports and not poetry and love letters. It was addressed to Mother, but Eve was so curious that she could not stop herself from playing the child and leaning over her whilst she opened it.
“Evie!” Mother cried, a nickname she only used when Eve was being particularly improper. “I shall never open the letter if you continue this nonsense!”
“I am sorry, Mother,” Eve said. “It is only that we so rarely get letters. I sometimes feel like there is a fairy of some kind that intercepts our post before it gets here, and that is why we get so little.”
“You are a woman now, and not a child,” Auntie Alice said from the corner, looking up for a moment from her knitting, the needles looking tiny in her humongous hands. “You should not talk of faeries and topics of that sort.”
“It was only a fantasy,” Eve said. “I do not actually believe in faeries Auntie.”
“Oh my!” Mother cried, and placed the letter (which she had opened in the interval) upon the table. She looked around the room, and apparently at a loss for words, exclaimed again: “Oh my!”
“What is it, Mother?” Eve said, wanting to pick up the letter but knowing she had to wait until Mother gave her permission. “Oh, Mother, may I read it?”
“Yes, yes,” Mother said, waving her hand. “You better had!”
Eve picked up the letter. By the end of it, the letter was shaking in her hand.
It read—
Dear Mrs. Somerset,
I sincerely hope that I am not presuming upon a relationship not fully developed, and that I cause no distress or any other negative emotion by writing this letter. I confess I have not written a letter of this sort for many years, not since before the war, and even then they came to no real consequence. I am writing in the hopes that you will grant me permission to call upon your daughter, Miss Eve Somerset. I am not a rich man, but I have an adequate income and that I believe is equal to your position. I talk of economics because I understand it is important in matters like this, but do not think I write this letter out of any economic motivation. (I have written three more, and all have ended up in tatters, and so I must continue, if only to save good paper!) I am sorry if this letter is not as well-written as a mother would wish, but I am a military man. I will leave the poetry to Mr. Blake.
What I am trying to say, Mrs. Somerset, in the most roundabout and indirect way possible, is that I am very interested in your daughter; and if you would give me leave to call on her, I would be most happy indeed.
Yours Sincerely,
Brigadier Charles Appleyard.
“Oh my!” Mother exclaimed, throwing her head back. “What a letter! What a sort of letter!”
Eve read it through thrice more, each time pausing over the words, poring over them, letting them seep into her. Most happy indeed! Very interested! Eve had not imagined that Brigadier Appleyard was interested in her in any way. She had thought he was bored of her – of the coterie of wallflowers – when he stormed out of His Grace’s castle. She had not imagined that something like this would happen.
“His face!” Auntie Alice muttered fiercely, laying her needles aside.
At the same time, Mother cried, “Sister!”
“Do not chastise me for saying aloud what you must be thinking!” she snapped. “His face is frightful to look upon. Any handsomeness he once had was robbed by the French! That is what I say!”
“Mother, how dare she!” Eve cried.
“You ought to be glad no one is present to hear you talk like that, sister. It is most unbecoming indeed!”
“Mother,” Eve said, turning her back on Auntie. “Will you let him visit us, please? Will you? I don’t care one bit for his face. It doesn’t bother me at all. He—” he talked to me of war, as though I was a man! “He is a most interesting man,” she went on. “And I believe he is courteous and kind, but he was uncomfortable at the ball because there were so many people there and he is not a social man. He is a soldier. You cannot blame a soldier for not marching correctly into a ballroom!”
“It is a mistake,” Auntie muttered.
“Mother, tell her!”
“I could have settled for dozens of frightful men, but I am all the happier that I didn’t!”
“Oh, sister,” Mother said, shaking her head. “Of course we must let him visit. He is a war hero, he has an income, and he is high-ranking in the military. It is all well and good making snide remarks, but of course we must allow him to visit. I will p
en a reply.”
After many edits and torn sheets of paper, Mother wrote:
Dear Brigadier Appleyard,
We would happily welcome you into our home. I am gladdened to read of how interested you are in Eve, and I am sure she will be happy to see you.
Yours Sincerely, Mrs. Somerset
*****
Mother swiftly received a reply to her letter informing her that Brigadier Appleyard would be arriving in Wells in two weeks for an extended stay, during which time he intended to tour the surrounding area and generally retreat from the society he’d so recently been thrust back into. He wished to take a pause, he said, and he could think of nobody better to do that with that young Miss Somerset.
Eve was hugely excited by this news, and could barely sit still for the two weeks building up to his visit. The last time they had had a formal suitor had been when Eve was one-and-seven and a boy from London had come down to court her, but Eve had ruined that by not allowing the boy to call her “silly flower”.
“I am not silly,” Eve had said, to the gasps of Mother and Auntie Alice. “And I am not a flower. I am a woman, a quite intelligent woman.” Mother had not talked to her for almost a week after that.
“You will not embarrass this home again,” Mother said, the night before Brigadier Appleyard was due to arrive. “You will be decorous and proper at all times. You will not make remarks unbecoming of a young lady. You will not behave in a forward or improper manner. You will at all times be a lady, Eve. For the sake of your prospects, listen to your old mother! And remember at all times, he is here to win you, not the other way around. You must never appear overzealous with men. They are an – shall we say – eager sex, my sweet daughter. You know little of the world, and so you will not know of what I speak. But trust me when I say that nobler women than you have been brought lower than maidservants by the eagerness of their speech.”
Eve endured this speech by nodding and smiling, which was how she had learnt to deal with all of Mother’s long speeches. Auntie Alice wouldn’t say anything about the meeting since Mother had scolded her two nights ago. “If you will talk like that about a man who fought for your country, sister,” Mother had said, leaning over her, “then you can get out of my house!”
The only sound to be heard from Auntie Alice now was the click-click-click of her knitting needles.
Finally, the day arrived. Brigadier Appleyard sent a calling card in the morning asking if he may visit around one o’ clock. Mother responded that that was acceptable and Eve spent the morning in the most intense anticipation. She felt as though she had spent the last month climbing a vast mountain, and now she was so close to the top she could see sunlight cresting it, washing down toward her, over her face. However, despite this thrill of anticipation, a pit had opened in her stomach; she was incredibly nervous. When one has not spoken intimately with the opposite sex for a long time, one ceases to believe one is capable of such discourse.
But there was not long to be nervous. Presently Eve arose to a knocking at the door. “Sit down!” Mother hissed. “Let Ellie answer it!” (Ellie being the only maidservant they had been able to keep on at reduced wages.)
There was a shuffling without, and then Ellie led in Brigadier Appleyard. He looked around the room and smiled tightly when he saw Eve, his scar tugging at his upper lip.
*****
“Brigadier Appleyard,” Mother said, rising and curtseying. “It is a pleasure to welcome you into our humble home. I hope the journey here was agreeable.”
Brigadier Appleyard appeared lost for a moment. Then his head snapped to Mother and he nodded briskly.
“Yes, thank you,” he said. “The roads were at peace. It was—a nice change from—from the way things have been—elsewhere.” He flinched as though inflicted by his own words. “Ladies, thank you for allowing me into your home.”
“I believe you have met my daughter, Miss Eve Somerset?”
Eve had already stood. Now she curtseyed low and formally, but looked up for a quick, secret moment and caught Brigadier Appleyard’s eye. She looked down quickly, lest she appear coquettish.
“And my sister, Miss Alice Wilton,” Mother went on.
Auntie Alice curtseyed clumsily, looking anywhere but into Brigadier Appleyard’s face.
“Please, Brigadier Appleyard, sit down,” Mother said.
“You may use my Christian name, if you wish,” he said, as he took a seat on the chair that faced the three women. “Or you may simply call me Brigadier.”
Mother inclined her head. “Very well, Brigadier.”
“Charles, isn’t it?” Eve said.
Mother’s head snapped around, and regarded her balefully. “Forgive my daughter,” she said hurriedly.
“It is quite fine,” Charles said. Charles, Charles, Charles! “I gave you permission, and it is of no concern to me. In truth, the last thing a soldier wants – even a Brigadier – when he comes home is to be constantly reminded that he is, in fact, a soldier.”
Soon Ellie entered with tea and cakes. She laid them out upon the table, poured the tea and left quickly, as Mother had instructed her. They had had to dismiss their footman, as they did not host nearly enough and he had cost too much to keep on. They had only been able to keep Ellie, whose responsibility it was now to wait upon visitors. Mother seemed to hold her breath as Ellie served the food and drink. Eve could almost see her thoughts. He sees we don’t have a footman! He will judge us! He will judge us harshly!
But the Brigadier didn’t judge them at all. He simply took his drink and sipped it slowly. “Miss Somerset,” he said, facing Eve. “I must say, and please excuse my brutish way of putting it – I am afraid a soldier is not picked for his manners in times of war—I must say that I was surprised to see a woman of your elegance sitting amongst the wallflowers. A ghastly phrase, I know!” He shook his head. “A ghastly phrase,” he repeated. “But I am no wordsmith, as my letter proved.” He seemed to be tripping upon words. “What I mean to say is it startled me. That is all.”
“As it does me,” Eve said, as smoothly as she could. She folded her gloved hands in her lap. “But one must accept, mustn’t one, that being startled is a main course of life? I, for example, was startled and delighted to read your letter. Despite your protestations, it was most well-written and sincere. One rarely reads a sincere letter these days.”
“I could not agree more,” Charles said. “Yes, I could not agree more. Eloquence, sincerity and grandiosity are perhaps too close for comfort in some souls.”
“And you said you were no word-smith, sir!” Eve exclaimed, forgetting herself for a moment.
Mother shot her an accusatory look. Auntie Alice scoffed under her breath. Eve let out a sigh and forced her face to resume its calm impassivity. But she had seen the smile on his face, too. Just for a moment, they had looked across at each other and smiled, just smiled, as though they were good friends who had known each other for years. Eve felt an affinity with him, and she wished Mother and Auntie Alice would make some excuse and go away somewhere else. But of course that would not happen.
“You are a vivacious young lady, aren’t you, Miss Somerset?” the Brigadier said, with a smile that banished his scar for a moment. “When I was in the war, I used to dream of meeting a woman like—Forgive me, ladies, I have too long been away from society, and my thoughts sometimes turn into sentences without my consultation. This—this tea is wonderful.” He paused, his brow knitting, as though he was trying to devise a particularly complex plan. “Miss Somerset, I would like to know about you. I would like to know about your person, that is. What it is you enjoy doing. What it is that makes you, you.”
Mother nodded approvingly at this, and so Eve felt like she had permission to actually talk. “I adore reading,” Eve said. She quickly glanced at Mother. Nobody knew that Eve had taught herself Latin and Greek in the years of being a wallflower, had sneaked into Father’s old library and pored over the books which Mother refused to sell out of some belated se
nse of pride; Mother thought Eve read only light novels. She couldn’t expound fully on her reading without informing Mother.
“And I like to walk among nature,” she went on, and then stopped. Could she tell him that it was the natural arts that also interested her, the terminology and characterization of plant life, and not just the prettiness of this or that flower? Not with Mother present. She couldn’t state her interest in anything approaching intellectual study, a subject most inappropriate to a lady, a head-straining subject, a hysteria-inducing subject.
“And I enjoy painting,” she said. Here, at least, she needn’t fear Mother and Auntie Alice’s scorn. Painting, if done in a ladylike manner, was permitted. She talked for a time about her love of painting, which was nowhere near as her love of reading or nature, but still quite large, and then she asked the Brigadier, if it were not too forward, about himself.
“I have an income large enough to sustain a household with right servants and a small patch of land,” Charles said. His fingertips danced across the table, either from nerves or excitement. Auntie Alice looked at them with barely hidden disdain. He is a Brigadier and you are an unmarried spinster, Auntie! How dare you look at him like that! The scorn was a surprise to Eve, and with an effort she forced it back. “But ever since returning from the war I have been adrift and directionless. Most of my old friends died in the war, I am afraid to say, and I am an outcast now. I am an outcast because I am a scarred man, as you can see, and because I have made myself an outcast. Balls and parties and the lumière de la vie of high society no longer interest me terribly. That is why I sat beside you at the ball, Miss Somerset. I sensed, by your countenance and the way you looked upon the ball, that you, too, had become jaded with the whole affair.”
Three seasons of pruning and prancing and smiling and dancing. One does become tired!
The Duke of Ice Page 4
