Debutantes

by Charlotte Bingham

  Lady Devenish produced a small lace handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the corners of both her eyes. ‘It really was only a tease, you say?’

  ‘The problem is, Lady Devenish, I’ve never thought of my social accomplishments as being of the least consequence to anyone but myself, because to be perfectly honest with you I really do consider all of this a nonsense. Turning someone who has their own personality and everything into a person with a personality like everyone else, into a polite young lady fit for Society. I find it hard to believe that Englishmen or any man would want to marry a girl who has had all the spirit squeezed out of her, someone who is simply there to talk to them without dissent, have their children, and be able to walk in and out of a room correctly as well as stand up and sit down without causing any social embarrassment. I have to say that if this is true, that this is indeed what the men in this country require, then the men of this country are not for me.’

  ‘This is what Society requires, Lady Emily—’

  ‘And I do wish you – and please forgive me for interrupting you – but I do wish you would simply call me Emily and forget the formalities.’

  ‘Very well, Emily. But I have to tell you that this is what Society requires if you are to be presented into it. If you do not accept these conditions then it is highly doubtful as to whether anyone who may be considered to be proper would even contemplate taking you as his wife.’

  Emily sighed and then turned to walk to the window and look out across the windblown garden to the distant racecourse. She wished she was back in her beloved Galway, aboard Jack and galloping into the wind there, the stiff and salty zephyr that blew straight in off the Atlantic Ocean and left one with a feeling of exhilaration, rather than in a stiff and formal Berkshire where the March rains fell onto damp and soggy soil leaving her feeling chilled to the very marrow. Besides, she did not want some dull Englishman as a husband. She wanted Rory O’Connor, her strange wild mystical Irishman. She had no interest in being the socially correct wife of a cold-blooded English aristocrat. She wanted magic, mystery and romance, not etiquette, predictability and indifference.

  But then there was her home to consider, and the future of her parents. With her father getting slowly more blind and the family finances in disarray it would be a hammer blow if they were to lose their beloved ancestral home. It would be to all the family, and even Emily could hardly bear to think of life without the chaotic splendour and warmth of Glendarven. Besides, Rory O’Connor had let her go. He had ridden off and left her to her fate, when all he had had to do was ride up to the house, throw her across his sturdy grey horse and gallop off with her across the turf and the bog and into the Irish night.

  But he had let her go, and that perhaps was how he would let her stay, free of him and him free of her so that he could pursue his own strange faery-like existence. Perhaps he had never really wanted to be encumbered with her, least of all for the rest of his days, or perhaps he simply did not exist at all, at least not in reality. Perhaps even now he was somewhere in the dark middle of a great mountain, planning his next kidnapping spree. Perhaps then it had all been just an enchantment, and what Emily was facing now was reality, a reality where her family could only be saved from ruin if she were to marry the richest man she could find.

  ‘Very well, Lady Devenish,’ she said, turning back from the window, her contemplation finished. ‘How long do we have?’

  ‘One week, Emily, that is all,’ Lady Devenish replied. ‘In one week’s time Lady Evesham will be coming to collect you and will expect you to be the very model of decorum.’

  ‘I say we can do it in half the time,’ Emily said with a sudden grin. ‘After all, you have taught me a great deal already.’

  For the rest of that week Emily learned all about how times had been and how they were. She learned that when her teacher had been a debutante if it became known that an unmarried girl had so much as waltzed with a gentleman her reputation was unutterably tarnished and the guilty party would either have to return home or be sent abroad, and that was that. There were no two ways about it. Let alone that no young woman who hoped to make a proper and decent match for herself would ever stray out onto the balcony between dances and stay there for any length of time unchaperoned or it would be rumoured that she was fast or had strayed. Thus as Lady Devenish pointed out Society had relaxed its rules considerably since her own day, so much so that only recently Lady Devenish had visited the house of a very respectable family who lived in the vicinity of Sunning Lodge where a punch bowl had been laid out in the dining room. Such a thing could never even have been imagined when she was a girl, let alone allowed, not in proper Society. Yet now it was becoming common practice and the people who practised it far from being ostracized were attending the Royal meeting at Ascot this year. That, according to Emily’s tutor, was how lax things had become, so far from feeling hard done by Emily should understand how very fortunate she was to be presented in an age of such free thinking and ever increasing informality.

  But coming from Ireland as she did Emily did not find this point of view easy to see. Life in English Society appeared to be so very different to the life to which she had become accustomed. ‘We still have a formality of sorts,’ she admitted, ‘at least on the more grand occasions when certainly one is expected to be on one’s best behaviour in the drawing room. Even so, there is far less etiquette and everyone expects to enjoy themselves rather than stand on these peculiar little ceremonies. And often even the more formal affairs end up with everyone having a party. For instance a cousin of ours made her debut in Dublin where as you know you are presented to the viceroy. And that year quite a few of the girls had put on face powder, but you see after you have made your curtsey the viceroy kisses you, and by the time he’d finished – he has this big brown beard you see – and by the time the girls had finished curtseying and he’d done with kissing them all his beard had turned snow white. It was an absolute joy – and everyone laughed.’

  So too did Lady Devenish, for the first time ever in Emily’s company and as far as Lady Devenish was concerned for the very first time since she had lost her husband. Now that Emily had stopped larking and they had each other’s measure, Lady Devenish found herself becoming quite inordinately fond of the tall striking-looking and characterful girl, and it seemed that in no time at all they had become the closest of friends. Consequently the lessons as such became far less formal and more of an exchange of opinions and ideas, even though etiquette was still taught and learned, but Emily looked forward to hearing about how life had been when the elderly Lady Devenish had been her age as much as Lady Devenish looked forward to hearing about life back in Ireland, a country for which she had an instinctive fondness even though she had never seen it. Now that she was learning all about it from her young pupil she became determined to visit it before she died.

  ‘You are finding all of this quite easy I see now,’ Lady Devenish said, halfway through that last week. ‘With absolutely no difficulty at all you have learned to carry and conduct yourself in the approved manner, with your eyes kept down until spoken to, with the proper erect deportment, and with your hands to your sides unless coming gracefully to the fore to pick up your reticule, your fan or your gloves, or perhaps all three, from your maid which is really quite excellent. As is the very way you walk. It is most graceful, and a long way from the headstrong filly who delighted in charging around this house not so very long ago, whistling and sliding down the banisters.’

  Emily grinned. ‘It’s a lot easier than learning to lepp the Galway stone walls on a side-saddle, Lady D., and on a blood horse, I can tell you that.’

  ‘I’m sure, my dear. But there is one thing you seem to find impossible to do and however much you cavil at it unless you do as I say the men will run a mile from you.’

  ‘I know,’ Emily groaned. ‘Sure I know what you’re going to say before you even say it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lady Devenish agreed. ‘I am sure you do. But you really must tr
y not to cultivate such an intelligent expression. I have told you time and time again. An intelligent expression in a young lady is liable to frighten an Englishman more than a knife held to his throat by a blackamoor. An Englishman likes a gel to behave beautifully, dance gracefully, and look foolish, that is the Englishman’s ideal in a woman.’

  ‘And if all this succeeds, Lady D., and I find myself married to some choice Englishman, what then when he finds out that I am not what I seemed to be?’

  ‘My dear girl, if you succeed in marrying into the highest echelon of Society your husband will do well to be able to pick you out of the crowds which will invade your house, let alone know you in any detail. All that matters is that in advance he will know he has married properly. So now, for perhaps the last time, shall we rehearse our now famous imaginary little play – Lady Emily Persse at Buckingham Palace.’

  As always Lady Devenish closed her eyes exactly as if she was in church at the start of her imaginary exercise in courtly behaviour and how specifically to behave when out and about in Society.

  ‘Very well now, Emily. One is now at Buckingham Palace, one is finished in the anteroom and one’s heart is beating very, very fast as one is being summoned into the Presence. One’s train is being straightened by the pages, one walks forwards – eyes always down when royalty is present remember – and one stops before the dais. Now one steps to this side with this leg, that side with that leg, and down one sinks into the court courtesy. And low and behold what does one find? One finds one has executed one’s court courtesy without the slightest of problems. One rises, and down one sinks once more in front of the Other Presence, if there is another Presence the day you are presented, and then one steps backwards, always backwards, for one’s back must never be seen by the Presence, before departing the Presence or Presences and allowing the next debutante to take your place.’

  Emily executed the manoeuvre perfectly, hoping against hope that when the time actually came for her to do so the mischievous pages did not do as she had been told by her mother they sometimes did to debutantes which was to throw her train backwards in such a way that she became irretrievably entangled in it, tripping and eventually tumbling, but of course always backwards, always backwards lest royalty should get a glimpse of that most unspeakable part of a commoner’s body, the back.

  ‘Good, Emily, excellent as always, my dear,’ Lady Devenish approved. ‘Because you are tall and so handsome you have great presence when you use it correctly. The court courtesy is not only the grandest of our courtesies, but it is also the most practical, since it can be held without the slightest strain for long lengths of time, for it has to be executed not just in front of a king or a queen remember, but before the whole court. Thus it had to be designed to be easy to hold, and goodness – it is. One could remain in that position for a whole day if necessary, and never really notice any strain. It really is the most marvellous of devices.’

  ‘Thenk you, Lady Divinish, you rarlly are maste kind,’ Emily replied in a mock-perfect English accent. ‘Thenks to your excellent tichin’ the hale pracess has bin as easy – high shall one sey? Yes – as easy as forling orf the proverbial lorg.’

  Lady Devenish did not smile this time, she laughed. And not altogether musically either. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘But I do not recall ever meeting a gel quite as amusing as you, my dear Emily. And you have a simply wicked ear. No doubt you keep all your friends constantly amused by your imitations, and I suppose that I too shall now join your repertoire.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Emily assured her with a grin, reverting to her own voice. ‘We’re friends, and while I might tease my friends I never make fun of them.’

  ‘How kind,’ Lady Devenish said. ‘But even so I must confess I should not mind if you did make some fun of me occasionally, because it would at least mean I had not been altogether forgotten.’

  ‘You won’t be, Lady Devenish, I promise,’ Emily replied. ‘All said, I have greatly enjoyed my stay with you.’

  ‘Good. But it is not quite over yet. For tonight – to celebrate your passing out of my academy, shall we say? – I am giving a dinner party in your honour with some quite distinguished guests. Besides providing some splendid entertainment, it will also give us both a good idea as to how well I have done my job and as to how you will fare once you leave here for the capital.’

  Needless to say Emily passed her first test with flying colours. She was poised, graceful, elegant, charming and attentive, behaving from start to finish as if she had been attending evenings such as this all her life which of course she had, although with far less formality and in an altogether different language. Above all she managed to look not one bit too intelligent, at least not in a way which the men present might find intimidating, having perfected in the privacy of her bedroom in front of her looking glass an expression which conveyed deep interest in what any male companion might have to say to her (however boring the actual topic) without for one moment giving the impression that she might be able either to contradict him or to trump his trick. As a consequence the men placed either side of her at dinner and those who talked with her afterwards uniformly expressed themselves of the opinion that Lady Emily Persse was one of the most sensitive and intelligent young women they had recently had the pleasure of encountering.

  ‘If you keep giving performances such as you gave tonight, my dear,’ Lady Devenish concluded before they retired, ‘then I should imagine you would stand every chance of finding yourself engaged to the catch of the Season – whoever he may be this year.’

  And such were Emily’s obvious charms that this might well have proved to be the case, had not the Countess of Evesham had an altogether different option planned and already well in hand.

  FIRST FOOTING

  Coming from the clean fresh air of the country and the seaside the first thing Portia noticed about London was the smell. Even though it was still only April and the weather had yet to warm up the general stench from the thousands of unswept horse droppings and the teeming drains all but suffocated her. As she said to her aunt as they were driven into town in the coach which had brought them down from Bannerwick, she had somehow imagined that London would be an immaculate place, forgetting there were so many people living there let alone the multitude of horses. Sir Lampard explained to her that the Public Health Acts passed during the present Queen’s reign had much improved matters and even now great efforts were still being made concerning hygiene, including the laying down of new drainage systems and a dramatic improvement in the techniques of street disinfection, but to his mind as far as public hygiene was concerned the real salvation lay with the internal combustion engine. Aunt Tattie begged to differ, dismissing the horseless carriage as an inventor’s daydream, regardless of the progress being made in France and Germany.

  ‘Look at what happened to the steam coaches which were going to revolutionize transport, brother dear,’ she reminded him. ‘They were banned years ago. Much as I would like to I cannot see this famous combustion engine you all talk about so avidly ever replacing horse-drawn transport. Not on the roads. And not in our lifetimes.’

  Portia looked out of a window of their carriage at the busy streets and sighed a deep inward sigh of discontent. Much as she had been against staying up in Norfolk after the events at Brueham House and much as Aunt Augustine’s summons to London had come as a surprising godsend, even her first impressions of the capital made her homesick for the quiet meadows of Bannerwick and the wondrous expanses of her beloved Broads. She would of course make the most of her stay, that she had already determined, just as she had determined she would not let her misery show, but no matter how cheerfully she smiled at her relatives and listened to what they had to say with as much interest as she could muster she could not change how she felt inside herself, and the truth was that her heart was heavy. While she had been with Dick she had given no real thought to love or the fact that indeed she might have fallen into that very state. All she had known was that she was ha
ppier than she had ever been in her life, and while the idyll had lasted she had fondly and as she realized foolishly imagined that in one form or another it would last for ever. That was all she had allowed herself to imagine but it had been sufficient, and it was only now the idyll was over and over so abruptly that she realized the truth and the depth of her feelings. She loved Dick Ward and if he had asked her to marry him then or whenever, even in twenty years’ time, she knew she would have said yes to his proposal, happy to make her future life over to him, happy to do what he wished and to go wheresoever he wanted, or happy simply to wait for him until he did finally ask her to marry him.

  But that was not to be. They said Dick was to be betrothed to another, to the dazzlingly beautiful Miss Cecil with whom he had obviously been in love all summer, all the time that he had been sailing and swimming with Portia and helping plot their imaginary trip around the world. While they were planning to sail the seven seas he had already given his heart to someone else. And the foolishness of it all was that even though their association had been utterly innocent, Portia thought that because of the way she had felt and because of the way she was feeling now she would never love another. Not only that, but because of it she had been forced to exile herself from her beloved countryside and come to London to be presented and do the Season.

  Still, that was something she had chosen herself, or rather something to which she had voluntarily agreed, it being her Aunt Augustine’s original suggestion. So she would do her best to enjoy it and not allow herself to pass the time in dejection and misery. Besides, Aunt Tattie knew nothing of her upset and Portia intended for her to remain ignorant. There was only one thing worse than feeling sorry for yourself, she had decided, and that was someone else feeling sorry for you. So regardless of the seemingly incurable ache that was in her young heart she would make the very best of it and carry on for all the world as if nothing had happened.