Inside there were a few changes ‒ the hall a shade of Wedgwood green, the moulding of the ceiling picked out in white, the carpet on the stair had changed to a plain, darker green. Although it was an old house, it looked new. There was no sign of chipped paintwork anywhere, no curtain faded along its folds. As they passed the floor where Iris and Charles slept, Iris showed her the new bathrooms ‒ two of them in the space of the single old-fashioned one that had been there, a new dressing-room for herself, and Charles’s bedroom redecorated. Here were most of the regimental pictures she remembered, and the pictures of Dencote now banished from the library below. It seemed as if Iris had decided to put Charles and all his memories tidily into one room, where they didn’t disturb her. On the next floor was the room Nicole had always used, but it was changed now. Here too, the bathroom had been modernized, all the porcelain fittings were in pink, and a dressing-room fashioned out of its original space. The bedroom itself had changed; everything done in shades of chintz to tone into the rose-pink carpet. Iris evidently didn’t remember that Nicole didn’t care much for pink. It was all soft, with silk fringed lampshades, and rose velvet cushions on the chintz sofa. There were white-painted bookshelves, mostly bare. There were matching antique covered bowls on the dressing table, decorated with sprays of roses; before the mirror stood a vase of tiny pink hothouse rosebuds. There was an ivory-coloured telephone on a Louis XIV table by the bed, and a headboard covered in pink silk. The room was a sort of princess’s dream; Nicole thought there should have been a golden-haired girl waking to life in that bed, all soft and pink herself. She could have laughed, but she did not. ‘Thank you, Aunt Iris ‒ it’s very beautiful. Thank you …’ And she saw from the hungry tightness in her aunt’s face that this was the room Iris herself had wanted as a young girl. Nicole now knew enough about the North of England, and the Yorkshire mill-owner who had been her grandfather, to know that there had been no such fairytale room for Iris. Iris had come from a world where the mahogany was solid, the curtains dark, the carpets were all turkey red, and nothing ever wore out. ‘How kind of you,’ she added. ‘You’ve thought of everything …’
‘Well …’ Iris relaxed. She moved around the room, touching things here and there, explaining where this had come from, and that. ‘Room for your own books, of course. I have the frames ready for the photographs …’
‘I haven’t any photographs.’
‘Your presentation photograph. Your coming-out ball … It was all arranged.’
There was another change. Iris grew embarrassed and almost defensive as she led Nicole up another flight of stairs. This was the floor which would once have been the nursery floor; it was inhabited now by the cook and two maids. Adams had the top floor all to himself. Iris was a careful housekeeper and knew how to keep her valued servants; the carpet did not change to linoleum here, and the woodwork was as freshly painted as below. She led Nicole to the room farthest at the back, a small but well-lighted room overlooking the mews cottage far below, and towards the high roofs of the next square.
Nicole had never seen this room before. ‘It used to be a box room,’ Iris said, ‘but one collects such rubbish …’ It was perfectly bare and white, except for the brown carpet. It had a writing table and a chair, and one easy chair. It also had a grand piano. ‘Charles’s idea,’ Iris said. ‘It’s been soundproofed ‒ that is as much as one can manage in an old house.’ She nodded towards the shelves. ‘The piano people assure me they’re the right size for music. There’s just one thing. I must ask you not to play between two and four in the afternoon, and of course not unreasonably early in the morning or late at night. Adams has his quarters directly above here. I can’t have him disturbed during his hours off …’
Nicole stumbled over her words, and she felt her throat tighten. ‘I don’t know what to say … How do I thank you? I’ve never had a room …’ She went to the only ornament the place possessed, a small wooden bust of Beethoven, touched it tentatively, thinking of Lermanov’s scorn.
‘Charles found that,’ Iris said, as if to dissociate herself from anything so frowningly ferocious. ‘It seems very bare, but no doubt you’ll find your own things to put here. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t use the piano in the drawing-room, but Charles tells me you’ll still want to practise. The piano downstairs needs tuning … the man was to have come this morning …’
‘I can do it, Aunt Iris,’ Nicole said eagerly. ‘You have to be able to tune a piano. It’s part of the training ‒’
‘That won’t be necessary, Nicole. There are people to do that. You won’t have much time to yourself, you know …’ Her glance swept around the bare room. ‘Not much time for this. I’m sure …’ Now she looked back at Nicole with great directness, a plain woman, as she had always been, well but unimaginatively dressed, her hair sculpted into iron waves, the efficient, untiring chairwoman of half a dozen important committees, an ambitious woman seeing in this girl before her a chance to achieve a wish she had thought long dead. ‘I’m sure, now that you have decided to come back and have your season, you will be a success. A great success. It’s quite hard work. Not much time for sleeping …’ And, she implied, not much time for what this room contained.
Nicole knew what she had promised. ‘I’ll do everything you want me to, Aunt Iris.’
Iris nodded briskly, indicating with that single gesture that the room was already paid for. ‘Now we must go downstairs. Adams will have tea waiting.’ She threw back over her shoulder as they went down, ‘I’ve engaged a maid for you. During the season you’ll be too busy to see to your clothes yourself. Her name is Henson. She’ll take care of your unpacking …’ It was all arranged. All Nicole had to do was keep her promise, and Iris would ask nothing else. At that moment it seemed an easy thing to do.
Charles was waiting in the library, and so was Judy Fenton. Nicole knew at once that this was another concession from Iris, possibly made at Charles’s insistence. They looked at each other a moment, and then laughed in a kind of excitement that seemed to say that each recognized the difference in the other. Judy seemed older ‒ and Nicole had never seen her so smartly dressed. She carried an air of authority about her that would never have belonged to the soft blonde prettiness of eighteen months ago. They fell into a rapid French exchange that seemed, after all the time at Madame Graneau’s, quite natural, and then laughed and went back to English.
‘Lady Gowing was kind enough to invite me, and Mother urged me to come. She thinks I should enjoy some of my “finish” while it’s still on me.’
‘You’re not going to do the season, are you?’ Nicole asked.
Judy grimaced. ‘It would be a waste. An absolute waste. I’ve been invited to a few balls. Just as a sort of country cousin, though. I’m taking over a lot of things at home from Mother, and the horses ‒’
‘You could share ‒’ Nicole stopped short. She had been about to suggest that Judy share her own coming-out ball, and in time she had seen Iris’s expression, and remembered her promise. Iris would not permit anyone else on the receiving line on the night for which she had waited so long. So Nicole stifled the impulse, and felt that she had begun, already, to betray her friendship with Judy. So she said, looking directly at her aunt, ‘It will be all right if Judy stays here whenever she has to come to town for a ball, won’t it?’
‘Of course,’ Iris said; gracious now that the threatened danger had been passed. ‘No doubt they will be the same balls you’ve been invited to, Nicole.’ She added, ‘Would you pour, please? I just want to run through the list of the luncheon parties you’ve been invited to, and the ones at which you’ll be the hostess. It’s necessary, of course, to know a nucleus of girls and their mothers before the season starts properly. It’s no use having balls where everyone’s a stranger to each other …’
The talk went on and on, or at least Iris’s talk did. Nicole said ‘yes’ to everything, and often felt Charles’s gaze of gratitude on her, and Iris’s more appraising look, the careful scrut
iny of the way she handled the tea-pouring, the replenishing of plates, even ringing for Adams when more tea was needed. Iris visibly relaxed during this time. She could scarcely recall the silent, nervous, little dark-haired girl who had sat here two years before. This one had even grown an inch or two, she talked and made little jokes, her hand didn’t tremble as she held the teacup. Even being nineteen years old, Iris conceded, might be an advantage; she could make the seventeen-year-olds look rather silly. She nodded in satisfaction as she ticked off the long list. The two-year wait had been worth it. She almost persuaded herself that the extra year had been her own idea.
‘Just a week, Aunt Iris,’ Nicole said. ‘Only a week. There’s plenty of time after that for the rehearsals and the lunches. Nothing starts until May, and I’d so love to go to Fenton Field. Judy’s finished her shopping, and I haven’t any more fittings for a week …’ She stopped there. It was dangerous to push Iris too far.
‘Well … I don’t see why not.’ Iris had made her own enquiries about the Fentons. There was no real money in Judy’s family ‒ comfortable Sussex farmers was how Iris would have described them. But they were well-connected. Judy’s mother was a first cousin to the Cavendish family. Fenton Field, she had been told, was a house locally famous for its beauty and its gardens. Quite a good friend for Nicole, and quite unlikely to outshine her.
‘Marvellous,’ Judy said. ‘Then you can drive down with Lloyd and myself tomorrow afternoon. Richard’s going to be home, too, so you’ll meet all the family.’
‘Who is Lloyd, my dear?’ Iris asked. She was, like all ladies who were bringing out a girl, anxious for the names of suitable young men to swell the lists for the balls and dinner parties. There could never be too many men, so long as they were presentable.
‘Lloyd’s one of my American cousins,’ Judy said. ‘We’ve got a whole branch of Fentons who went to Massachusetts ‒ not quite with the Mayflower, though. That must have been a very overcrowded ship if you can believe all those who were supposed to be on it. They’re in all sorts of things, but shipping principally. Used to be in the whaling business. Some of them lost a lot of money in that. I expect they’re just the usual American family, spread out into all sorts of things, and very energetic about it, if the comings and goings to Europe are anything to judge by.’
‘And this cousin ‒ Lloyd?’ Iris’s voice was a shade warmer ‘‒ is in shipping?’
‘No. Nothing to do with it. He’s a doctor. He got a fellowship to Cambridge, and then he decided to stay and take up surgery. He’s interested in neurosurgery, principally. That’s why he’s at St Giles’s. It’s supposed to be the best place for that.’
‘Oh ‒ a doctor.’ Iris’s tone was disinterested; all the same she had written his name on a list. Possibly a presentable young man, but not one to be taken seriously. Not when one was looking for marriageable males.
Lloyd Fenton came at a time close enough to the appointed one to be acceptable the next afternoon. He was shown into the library where they were having tea, immediately directing his apologies to Iris before turning to Judy. There was a warm embrace of affection. ‘Judy, you’re so grown-up it’s positively frightening. You’re becoming more sophisticated by the minute. I guess I’ll have to stop calling you “my little cousin Judy”. Sir Charles, nice of you to have me here, sir.’ Then he turned to Nicole, looking upwards at her as she perched on the library ladder, the teacup suddenly rattling in her hand.
‘There ‒ let me give you a hand. Shall I take that from you? I suppose you are coming down?’
‘Oh ‒ oh, yes. Just hunting for a Dostoevsky novel Uncle Charles said was here.’ Why did her voice tremble, and why did she look away from him?
‘Dostoevsky ‒ rather heavy reading for someone who’s just about to begin a London season? Interested in Russian stuff?’
‘Oh, Nicole’s got Russian grandparents, or something,’ Judy said. ‘It sounds a delicious mix ‒ with the English side of her.’
‘Russian ‒ interesting. Judy said you’re a rather good musician ‒’
He was cut short by Iris’s question, ‘Do you take milk, Dr Fenton? Is it Doctor Fenton, or Mister? I never am quite sure. Please do help yourself to scones or sandwiches. You’re doing neurosurgery at St Giles’s? It sounds rather formidable.’ This was Iris doing her best to be charming, and quite determinedly turning the talk away from Nicole’s Russian ancestry.
‘In America it’s Doctor, Lady Gowing. In England it’s now Mister. We have a bad joke about working ourselves to death in the beginning for the privilege of calling ourselves Doctor, and then working twice as hard for the right to go back to plain Mister.’
The rest of the tea time passed in small talk, little questions and answers, at which Iris pecked away at Lloyd Fenton’s background, his antecedents, his prospects. ‘You were at Groton and Harvard. How interesting.’
Nicole found herself tongue-tied. She realized that for the first time she was actually in the company of the sort of young man her mother had thought one day she would meet ‒ but meet on her own home ground in America. She felt a pair of quietly speculative eyes on her and the pleasant voice, with its slight New England flatness, was gentle. She didn’t know why she felt, because this man was a doctor, that he somehow saw more of her, farther into her, than another man would. How did they, with hardly a word, evoke an air of omniscience? ‘Do you know Massachusetts at all? ‒ Boston?’ he asked.
‘No, not really. I’ve just passed through. We … I used to spend the summers in Maine.’
It was partly the truth. She and Anna had spent two weeks each summer there. ‘Oh, I suppose you’re the Bar Harbor lot, are you? We people out on Cape Cod thought you were far too posh for us.’ He laughed as he spoke.
‘No ‒ not Bar Harbor.’ And she said nothing more. His questions were ended. He talked a little of politics to Charles, and to Iris about a new association being formed to provide extra patient amenities at St Giles’s. ‘If we’re lucky we’ll get the Duchess of Kent as Patroness …’ It wasn’t necessary to say more. Iris took it up eagerly, the hard work needed to organize, the difficulty of prying people loose from their money unless proper recognition as well as a good night out was provided. ‘It would save so much money if they would just give …’
‘But that isn’t human nature, is it, Lady Gowing?’
They were still talking when Nicole and Judy went upstairs to collect coats and handbags. They were in the hall as Adams loaded their suitcases in Lloyd Fenton’s car. ‘You might like to come to some of our dinners this season, Dr Fenton,’ Iris said. An American doctor was not her idea of someone for Nicole, but he had the right background and manners and was an unattached male. ‘Little dinners before everyone goes on to the balls, you know.’
‘It’s kind of you, Lady Gowing. Doctors aren’t very reliable guests, though. Apt to get called away, or be on duty at an inconvenient time. But I’m sure I can manage. As a research fellow I usually know what my free time will be. I’m not so important that I’m often summoned in to save the situation. The “great surgeon rushing to the rescue” is still a bit beyond me.’
They all squeezed into Lloyd Fenton’s sports car, Judy insisting on Nicole sitting in front. She and Lloyd kept up a stream of talk as they threaded their way through traffic. Nicole was allowed to remain silent. They were people of another world, almost. They talked of horses and dogs, of Judy’s brothers, of a world that Nicole knew she could never possibly belong to because it had not been there always, it was not ingrained in her as it was with these two. They had grown up on each side of the Atlantic, and yet this world was well-shared, a world of security, of knowing where each belonged. ‘You know, Judy, it might have done you better to have come over to Boston for a while instead of Paris. But I must say …’ He looked incautiously over his shoulder at his cousin, and then had to brake sharply to avoid a bus. ‘I must say the Paris sheen is remarkably effective.’
‘Sheen! ‒ you do know I took the Cordon Bl
eu! I can make a meal for a king out of scraps now. Mother’s quite alarmed when I start poking around in the pantry. And I’ve started going through her account books. She thinks it’s a bit much. I’ve even made three evening dresses for the balls I’ll be going to. I just couldn’t spend my whole clothes budget on some silly dresses I’ll only wear a few times. I’m very useful these days, Lloyd. You don’t know any young doctors who are brilliant but need an economical wife for those first difficult years until they start rolling in money?’
‘I’ll look about, Judy.’ Again he risked a backward glance and laughed. ‘But you know, with all these marvellous accomplishments, you’ll probably end up marrying a millionaire and it’ll be all wasted.’
‘Millionaire! Rubbish!’ Judy’s laugh was genuine, and it told Nicole that between her and Lloyd existed a relationship of great affection which would never be more than the feeling she had for her brothers. The teasing was of old friends, not of potential lovers. She added, ‘Now, if anyone’s likely to marry a millionaire, it’s Nicole.’ It was said with complete frankness and without envy.
‘So …’ Once again Nicole was uncomfortable under the stare from those discerning eyes. He glanced sideways at her, back at the traffic, and sideways again. The look and his speculative answer seemed to take in every part of her. She was conscious of the suit from Molyneux, the handmade shoes, the handbag bought for her by Charles in Florence ‒ the whole carefully polished appearance that was the result of nearly two years with Madame Graneau and the ministrations of the personal maid, Henson. She felt vaguely ashamed, and wondered why. Money was meant to be spent, wasn’t it? And why did the word millionaire sound so strange on the lips of someone like Lloyd Fenton? Men who worked to become doctors when their background suggested that they might have slid comfortably into a Boston law practice, or into stockbrokerage, usually didn’t care too much about money. She realized that she had come up against the patrician American, and that hardest of all to bend or sway, or impress, a New Englander. As they came to the outskirts of London and Lloyd Fenton was able to increase speed, she found herself glancing occasionally towards him as he had done towards her, and her gaze was as speculative as his had been. She supposed he was very handsome; in the first discomfort of meeting him she had registered general good looks, but not much else. Now in profile he seemed more American than ever, the craggy handsomeness of the New Englander descended from a people who had made their own aristocracy. He had a long, lean frame and long, strong hands on the wheel. He was dark, with rather pale skin, and dark bushy brows. She supposed his eyes were grey rather than blue. She wondered why she bothered to analyse him this way, and answered the question herself. He was an American, the first, apart from the few American girls at Madame Graneau’s, she had encountered since she had left the States. He would be measuring her by standards that the English could not because he knew the small, fine points of style and manner that an American girl of the type she was supposed to represent would display. Suddenly all the years at St Columba’s seemed hardly worth the trouble, and her mother’s dream of turning out a facsimile copy of the well-bred, well-connected young woman, impossible. She shivered just a little because he had so easily been able to shake the confidence she had thought impenetrable. She found herself wishing very much that Judy had had no American cousins.
The Lynmara Legacy Page 12