The track took them in a curve through the banana fields, the broad flat leaves towering above and around them like glossy green parasols, and the workers, the pickers and the carriers, stared with frank curiosity at the passing cart. Ruby had spent her days here as a girl, working in the lee of her mother, bearing on her head a towering pile of bananas and walking in stately procession to the Rio Grande where boats waited to carry the fruit to Port Antonio. For a while she had been content enough. By the end, she hated every square inch of the Sugar Hill plantation. Now, although she fought it, a knot of hard anxiety had formed in the pit of her belly; how odd, she thought, that a tract of land could have such an effect, as if she’d come face to face with Silas Whittam himself, on an empty lane, in the dead of night.
The bungalow that Justine shared with Henri occupied a corner of flattened land at the foot of the final sweep of the track to Silas’s residence. The two of them walked back and forth to the house so often that ruts marked out their path on the shingled track. Outside their own dwelling there was no garden, but two dusty chickens scratched half-heartedly at the baked earth and a pot of Scotch Bonnet peppers brought a splash of colour to the drab porch steps. Scotty brought Edna to a halt and Ruby clambered off the cart, dragging Justine’s basket of vegetables with her. Justine lowered herself gingerly from the seat. Up the hill, the great house could just be glimpsed through the trees that surrounded it: a small corner of the western end of the house, its long sash windows glinting wickedly in the afternoon sun.
‘You’ll be all right now,’ Ruby said to Justine, and it was a statement, not a question. She was anxious to be on her way. Justine nodded.
‘Vous êtes très gentille,’ she said. ‘Very kind.’
Ruby shook her head. ‘It was nothing. Be careful next time you come to the market.’ This made it sound as though Justine’s own carelessness was to blame for her injury, so Ruby added, ‘I mean, be wary.’
Justine nodded.
‘Do you have friends here?’ Ruby said, finding herself unable to simply spring up into the cart and be gone. The pickers nearest to them moved about their business, keeping their distance. Somewhere, someone was singing. Justine laughed sadly.
‘No friends, only Henri.’
Ruby looked about her. Everywhere there were people. ‘No one?’
Justine shrugged. ‘They fear me,’ she said in her faltering voice. ‘And they believe I am…’ She paused here, reluctant to help spread the rumour by repeating it now. ‘Quimbois woman. Obeah woman. Mais pas vrai,’ she added. ‘A lie.’
There was a pause. Ruby wondered if Justine had given them cause for mistrust. There was, however, nothing sinister about her appearance, apart from the blood on her dress, and that had been spilled at the hands of ordinary rogues in the market place.
‘They don’ like masser,’ Justine said. ‘Mais they think masser like me.’
Ruby nodded, understanding at once. There were no advantages to being a favourite of the boss, especially this particular one, who was known to value his banana plants above the people who grew, picked and carried them.
‘And does he? Like you, I mean?’
Again, Justine shrugged. ‘Sometimes, oui. Et quelquefois non. I mean, sometimes, no.’
She spoke without self-pity and gave Ruby a rueful half-smile.
‘Well,’ Ruby said. ‘You know where I live. You have a friend now.’
Behind her, Scotty sucked his teeth and gave a low hiss of disapproval. Justine glanced uncertainly at him then she seized Ruby’s hands and squeezed them hard in a wordless gesture of gratitude, before stooping to pick up her basket and turning towards her house.
Up on the cart, with Ruby now beside him, Scotty said, ‘You be careful, Ruby Donaldson. You make friends with dat woman, you make trouble fo’ yourself.’
She cut him a withering look. ‘Superstition and prejudice is the bane of this island,’ she said grandly.
He laughed his long, slow wheeze of a laugh. ‘Superstition and prejudice,’ he said, imitating Ruby’s hauteur then shaking his head, as though the words were hilarious. ‘You mighty fine, Lady Donaldson. You mighty fine.’
He clicked his tongue at Edna and the old mule threw back her head and split the air with a jagged, doleful bray, before hauling the cart into motion and heading for home.
Chapter 17
The debutante curtsey was by no means a simple, perfunctory bob, nor was it a lavishly theatrical flourish. Rather, it was a slow, graceful descent, left foot positioned behind the right, back straight, head erect, arms and hands motionless by one’s side. As the curtsey reached its lowest point the head must then be very slightly bowed, in grateful obeisance to Their Majesties.
‘The greater part of the weight must be on the right foot when descending, on the left when ascending,’ Isabella said, quoting from an old, yellowing manual that her mother had retrieved from a casket of precious things: dance cards, invitations, a pressed rose, a bundle of letters. Isabella had been surprised at the existence of the box. Clarissa was not the keeping type, she had thought. ‘Perform this action repeatedly,’ she continued, ‘slowly, and with great care, until it may be accomplished in one fluid movement.’
She dropped the book, a little carelessly given its great age, on to a side table and demonstrated a perfectly steady, perfectly elegant, perfectly restrained curtsey. Tobias clapped. Rising, Isabella took up her manual voice again, reciting now from memory.
‘In a Court curtsey, the young lady must take care never to stoop from the waist, but only to make the smallest inclination of the head at the deepest point of the curtsey,’ she said.
‘And did you manage that?’ said Tobias.
‘I did. Alicia Treaves-Desmond fell to one side and had to put out a hand to support herself.’
‘Oh Lord. Off to the Tower?’
‘She was graciously ignored, until she righted herself. Utterly shaming.’
‘I’ll say,’ said Tobias. ‘It’s hardly a task, is it?’
‘Easy for you to say,’ said Isabella. ‘I’d like to see you curtsey before the king and queen without making an ass of yourself.’
‘And I’m perfectly sure I could,’ he said. ‘It’s one of those things that sounds desperately complicated when written down, but in reality is quite simple, like trying to give someone instructions for getting out of bed.’ He adopted the same scholarly tones that Isabella had used and said: ‘Pull back the counterpane with the left hand in a sweeping motion towards the centre of the bed and, at the same moment, raise the upper body and swing the right leg towards the floor, being sure to allow the left leg to follow swiftly after.’
‘Very amusing, darling,’ said Clarissa, glancing up from her embroidery, which was only ever a device for listening to other people’s conversations while affecting not to. ‘Of course, the joke is that a manual to help you out of bed might actually be rather useful.’
Isabella laughed. Her mother was very rarely intentionally funny; it was important to appreciate her wit if you should chance to encounter it. Tobias said, ‘Unfair, Mama. Isabella, what time did we ride this morning?’
‘Up with the lark, as a matter of fact,’ his sister said. ‘We were out before the Household Cavalry.’
Clarissa looked up again. ‘When I had my Season I attended fifty balls, forty parties and twenty-five dinner parties,’ she said, in the way she had of appearing not to have registered the previous comment. But then she added, ‘And every morning I rode out before ten o’clock, to keep the colour in my cheeks.’
‘All those parties, but you met Daddy on Rotten Row,’ Isabella said, taking up her favourite family legend. ‘He cantered up alongside you…’
‘…spooking my grey mare as he did so,’ said Clarissa, supplying – as she always did – the sour to the sweet.
‘…and you rode together for a whole hour…’
‘…well, I couldn’t shake him off.’
‘…at the end of which, he said, “I would ride to t
he ends of the earth, simply to see your face one more time.”’
‘To which I said, “No need, we’re both expected at the Abberley’s tomorrow evening.”’ Clarissa was pink and pert, remembering her heyday.
‘I wish I’d been there to see you,’ Isabella said, with a dreamy face. She was determined that romance should blossom for her in a similarly heroic, all-obliterating way.
‘I know what you mean, Iz,’ Tobias said. ‘You were a famous beauty, Mama.’ It was a pretty compliment, but rather spoiled by the past tense. ‘Suitors galore.’
‘Mmm,’ Clarissa said in a dampening way, returning to her needlework. Tobias and Isabella exchanged a grimace that said, Let no one hint at the passing of the years, nor make any reference to Mama’s fading looks.
The three white ostrich feathers that Isabella had worn in her hair the previous day, at her presentation at Court, were now in a slender vase on the card table. She had looked exquisite in a white gown by Worth, long kid gloves and a beaded Alençon veil, but had felt utterly cooped-up and frustrated, waiting for almost two hours in a cold anteroom at the Palace, with dozens of other debutantes and their mothers, for her turn to be called. They twittered and squawked like captive birds, and any sense of the honour about to be conferred was quite lost in the crush and the tedium. Some people hid hot-water bottles under their furs, and others sipped hot soup from of flasks, as if they were waiting at the roadside, having lost a wheel from their carriage. Isabella had borne the ordeal stoically enough, but all the time nurturing the mutinous feeling – which she strove to keep from showing in her face – that this custom had deteriorated into a silly pantomime, as pointless for the debutantes as for Their Majesties. There were so many girls! And anyone seemed to be able to come along; indeed, there were peeresses for hire these days, to present those girls whose own families didn’t qualify. Clarissa, with stony indifference, cut those she knew to be guilty of malpractice and murmured a bitter commentary, a litany of disapproval, to Isabella. By the time they were summoned to the Throne Room they were both as tightly wound as watch springs. Granted, thought Isabella, the great state room, decorated in a glorious red, white and gold, was worth a look, and the Yeomen of the Guard, who lined corridors and staircases, brought a proper sense of order and ceremony to the occasion. But it hadn’t been fun; it hadn’t even been especially interesting.
Afterwards, Isabella had had a champagne supper in the Palace, served by powdered footmen. Then the Plymouths’ motorcar was announced and she was brought home. Some of the girls were going on to parties at the Savoy or Claridge’s, but Clarissa had developed a nervous headache and Isabella, who knew well enough that the rest of the Season was packed with engagements, had decided to be docile. She did wonder, though, how soon the lovely Worth gown could have another airing. The tulle ballerina dress, adorned at the bodice with silk camellias, deserved a proper outing, a spin around a dance floor in the arms of a handsome beau.
The drawing room door opened and Padgett, the butler, said, ‘The Countess of Netherwood,’ stepping back as Thea stepped forwards. She smiled, though at the room rather than the people in it. Her legs, startlingly slender, were clad in miraculous stockings that seemed to shine as if silver-plated, and this effect only emphasised the boldness of the hemline of her pewter silk dress. The fabric looked slight and expensive. Below the hips, it was pleated; above them, it clung like a second skin. With a small shrug Thea discarded the Arctic fox tippet from her shoulders directly into Padgett’s waiting hands.
‘Darling,’ she said to Isabella. ‘How were the Royals?’
‘Oh, we’ve done all that,’ said Isabella with a dismissive wave. She was chilly and discouraging, and had been since her discovery. Clarissa looked up, and smiled at her daughter.
‘Funny little thing,’ Thea said, simultaneously condescending and maddeningly, sweetly affectionate. ‘Oh well. Let me tell you what I’ve been up to.’
Isabella looked startled, and glanced across the room at Tobias. He was draped crosswise on a button-backed armchair, watching his wife with an idle smile. As he was here, he might as well watch the show.
‘Eugene took me to the Slade,’ she said, all alight. ‘The art school, right? He has a friend there, studying life drawing under the most terrifying man I have ever met. Eyes like a shark and a great beaky nose, and a withering disdain for his fellow man, especially if she’s a woman.’
Clarissa leaned forwards and pulled the brass bell pull for Padgett, or anyone else whose entrance would disrupt Thea’s flow. She said to Tobias, ‘The Maharaja of Jaipur is in town, I hear.’
Thea laughed, a short bark of amusement and pity; Clarissa’s tactics were so clumsy. ‘So,’ Thea went on blithely, ‘this awful fellow was stalking about the studio growling and sneering at the students, and in the middle of them all was a young man, absolutely bare. Imagine!’
Tobias gave a snort of laughter.
‘I know,’ said Thea. ‘Classic. Anyway, the beaky tutor threw me out. Girls and boys don’t mix at the Slade, especially nude ones.’
Isabella, leaning against the mantelpiece, arms folded, was miffed. She’d had all the attention, and she could have kept it, but she had handed it on a plate to Thea. Now she was torn between fascination with the story and sheer bewilderment at the ease between her brother and his faithless wife. Her own frostiness, liberally doled out, seemed to be having no effect at all; Thea shone in the centre of the room, glowing with style and charisma and supreme confidence. She was invincible, thought Isabella with grudging admiration; she was a life force. Small wonder Mama’s manners had deserted her; with Thea in the room, every other woman was at a disadvantage.
Behind them all, the door opened and the solemn figure of Padgett stepped back into the drawing room.
‘Your Grace?’ he said. It was almost time for luncheon, and his duties were manifold, but nevertheless he was the duchess’s eternal servant and nothing was too much trouble: all this was somehow conveyed in his voice and bearing. ‘You rang.’
Clarissa, casting about for a job for him, caught sight of the empty grate and said, ‘Thank you Padgett. It’s a little chilly in here, and I thought it would be nice to have a fire after all.’
‘Mama, do you think so?’ said Tobias. He panted and pulled at his collar comically, and his mother said, ‘You think only of yourself, Toby. Archie, as you ought to know, mustn’t be in a draught.’
‘You make him sound like that tortoise Izzy used to have,’ Tobias said, and Isabella, drawn into better humour by the aptness of the analogy and the memory of her pet, said, ‘Sir Terence – how I miss him still,’ and Tobias laughed.
‘Sir Terence, that’s right. From a street market in Alexandria all the way to Netherwood in Great-Uncle Richard’s carpet bag.’
‘What became of Sir Terence?’ Thea asked. ‘I would’ve liked to meet him.’
In perfect unison, Isabella and Tobias said: ‘Being a creature native to a strip of coastal desert in the south-east Mediterranean basin, Sir Terence was constitutionally unsuited to the draughty conditions of a box in the scullery of Netherwood Hall,’ and then they both hooted with delighted laughter at their double act, still word-perfect after ten years. Thea, excluded from the joke but still smiling good-naturedly, said, ‘What’s that?’
‘The post-mortem,’ Tobias said. ‘It was magnificent. Papa sent dead Sir T to one of his old Cambridge tutors. We all gathered in the drawing room to hear the professor’s diagnosis. Somehow it made up for Sir Terence’s demise that his autopsy was so dignified. They kept hold of him, I believe. Pickled him, or stuffed him, I suppose.’
The Duke of Plymouth suddenly materialised, sticking his head and long neck round the door of the room in a manner that could certainly be seen as tortoise-like, now that the seed of that idea had been planted. In their joint effort to remain straight-faced, Thea, Isabella and Tobias felt uncommonly fond of each other. Sensing this, Clarissa stalked out of the room just as her husband came in, leaving him with
the sad impression that he had offended her simply by existing.
Henrietta was supposed to be joining them for luncheon at the Park Lane mansion, but in the end they sat down without her. She was increasingly unreliable. Thea said she’d seen Anna Sykes at the Slade and, according to her, Henrietta was terribly involved with the Women’s Exhibition at Prince’s Skating Rink in Knightsbridge. Anna herself had painted a life-size canvas of women sowing grain; it was up with Sylvia Pankhurst’s work at the exhibition.
‘The theme is, “They who sow in tears shall reap in joy” and there are suffrage plays and a suffragette drum-and-pipe band.’ Thea had a look of someone trying to give a serious account of something she thought fundamentally ridiculous.
‘Good Lord,’ said Archie. Increasingly, he found the modern world upsetting. ‘Gels playing fife and drum. Good Lord.’
‘I’m going to have a look tomorrow,’ Thea said. ‘I’ll take you if you like, Archie. They have a soda fountain, Anna says, paid for by an American suffragist.’
Clarissa said, ‘Anna this, Anna that. Do we know her?’
‘Anna Sykes. Rabinovich, as was,’ said Thea. ‘She painted my rooms at Netherwood Hall.’
‘Oh, the little Russian,’ said Clarissa, as if this was the dullest possible answer. ‘Henry mixes with the oddest people.’
‘Anna Sykes has a waiting list of extremely distinguished clients, Clarissa,’ said Thea with a patient smile. ‘If you don’t have an Anna Sykes wall, you simply haven’t arrived.’
Clarissa lifted a finely drawn eyebrow. ‘Oh, speak for yourself,’ she said. ‘The rest of us can justify our place in society without the help of a Russian émigrée, thank you very much.’
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