Instinctively May had somehow managed to capture so perfectly some non-existent dowager’s outrage that Alice could not keep herself from laughing. ‘That is just like a great-aunt of mine, May!’ she exclaimed. ‘It was so real if I had my eyes shut I’d have sworn it was her!’
They both did their level best, of course, to cover all eventualities, rehearsing everything they imagined they could rehearse, and even practising whole exchanges of conversation. Here both Alice Danby and her husband Charles’s backgrounds helped greatly, because they could both accurately reproduce the excruciatingly boring small talk they had both had to suffer when they were young and coming out into Society. May of course found all this hilarious, and thanks to her gift for mimicry and her very spontaneity these sessions generally ended with them all helpless with laughter, with the Danbys clutching each other for support at their adopted daughter’s wonderfully comic improvisations.
‘Of course I shall hardly dare look at you when the time comes,’ Alice told her. ‘When we are entering the fray proper, don’t you so much as dream of giving me one of those famous looks of yours, like bossing your eyes as you did last night when I was pretending to be Her Majesty receiving you, or – and I mean it, May—’ Alice was doing her best to be strict, but as usual was finding it impossible, even when May looked at her with an absolutely straight face. Just the memory of the hopelessly comic rehearsal they had attempted last night had reduced her once more to laughter, so she had been forced to stop and draw breath, with nothing else to do but wag a helpless finger at May. ‘No, I mean it, May. I am a giggler at the best of times, so please, I beseech you, do not even think of pulling a face or putting on a voice, or least of all doing that quite dreadful walk you sometimes affect which makes poor Charles have to leave the room he laughs so much.’
‘Oh, I promise, Mamma, of course I do,’ May assured her in all seriousness, sitting down beside her and taking Alice’s hands. ‘It’s only nerves, I assure you. It’s because really I’m frightened silly by the thought of what I am going to have to do that makes me misbehave. I shall be as good as gold when the time comes, I promise you. You are such sweet, kind and good-humoured people the very last thing I should want to do would be to upset the applecart and disgrace you. I promise you that you will be proud of me. I promise you on my life.’
And of course May was as good as her word. Even though her nerves worsened as the time for her debut into Society approached, she stopped her fooling and concentrated as hard as she could on revising her book of etiquette, and practising her elocution, her posture and her deportment. By now the three of them had settled into the house in Park Lane, which coincidentally was the one next door to the very house Jane Forrester had hoped to buy three years earlier and which Herbert Forrester had not only furnished for them but had also had fully staffed. Here between her rehearsals May was fitted for gowns and dresses for the forthcoming Season by a dressmaker Alice had been recommended by a friend with whom she herself had come out and who was one of the very few of her contemporaries with whom she had kept in touch by letter. This friend would also prove to be useful as a general contact since she had married into the peerage and was well placed in London Society, her husband now being Lord Ducket, the Master of the Queen’s Household.
Alice learned from Harriet Ducket, with whom she had a most affectionate reconciliation, that the first event of any real note at the start of the London Season was what was known as Picture Sunday, traditionally held on the first Sunday in April, when all the portrait painters of any note opened their studios to Society and when duchess or debutante, strictly by invitation only of course, could attend private views at every painter’s from the great John Singer Sargent whose famous studios were at numbers 31–33 in Tite Street, Chelsea, to Sir Danmar Croft at Glebe Place, and Edmund Bedint who held court and painted in his studio in the less fashionable Charkham Street. On show would be the latest portraits of their chosen and much to be envied sitters, renowned and beautiful women – and sometimes women possessing both qualities – who could also of course be seen in the flesh admiring their portrait painters’ great works. To Alice this seemed to be the perfect moment to launch May into Society.
May, however, was not so sure, worrying that if as her new mother assured her not only would the paintings of all the famous Society beauties be on show, but there was every likelihood of rubbing shoulders with the sitters themselves, then she would be well and truly outmatched.
‘It’s not that I want to be noticed,’ she argued, only for Alice to interrupt her impatiently.
‘Of course you don’t, May darling!’ she laughed. ‘Thanks to your inherent modesty, for which virtue of course we must thank your nuns, but thanks to it anyway you do not see yourself as the wonderfully good-looking creature that you are. I am very glad you don’t, I assure you, because if you did your conceit might be somewhat less appealing than your most charming humility, so here you must trust your new mamma. I believe – although I do agree it is a risk – but even so I do truly believe that your beauty will outshine them all. So therefore, rather than have you make your debut at a ball as is so often the case, I would rather take a gamble and introduce you at a time and place where few others would dare to introduce their daughters. You see balls cannot always be counted upon because often they are so badly organized no-one ever knows who is who and sometimes the debutantes do not even get a chance to be seen properly. What I’m trying to say is very often there is no real impact made, no lasting impression, and I feel you deserve a much better shot at it. I do not want to see your debut traduced by the bad behaviour of a lot of disorderly young gentlemen who will have drunk far too much. You deserve better, believe me, because I have had first-hand experience of how wrong it can all go. So what could be better than a time when tout Londres will be present, where there will be many influential and very important people, all of whom have come specifically to gaze at beauty? And then when they see you—’
‘Yes, well,’ May said somewhat gloomily. ‘Don’t you think we might be getting just a little carried away here, Mamma? From what you have already told me about the ladies of Society—’
‘No,’ Alice interrupted firmly. ‘As my father used to be fond of saying there are ambushes everywhere from the chapter of accidents. So therefore to ride life well you must ride with a loose rein.’
‘I like that,’ May said with a broad smile. ‘That has a tremendous dash about it. I must remember that.’
‘So shall we ride with a loose rein on Sunday?’
‘Yes, Mamma. Why ever not?’
Alice Danby defied the unwritten and unspoken rules of Society even further by deliberately choosing for May an outfit that was greatly more elaborate than perhaps was absolutely correct for a young woman about to make her debut, an exquisitely embroidered dress and cape of Solferino blue matched by a little hat whose cheek in turn matched that of a cock robin. Furthermore, again on the advice of her friend Harriet Ducket, Alice had privately engaged Monsieur Pierre, the hairdresser to the court, to attend to May’s hair which he cut and styled to perfection, trimmed and curled a little at the front and skilfully and beautifully folded softly into a chignon which he allowed to cover just the tops of May’s delicate little ears.
‘An angel come to earth,’ Monsieur Pierre whispered as he showed May the result in a looking glass. ‘I only hope that my skills have in some small way complemented your outstanding beauty, m’moiselle.’
While May made her usual demurring protest Alice assured the hairdresser that he had indeed achieved his aim. Now the final transformation from convent girl to debutante was complete and before them sat a young woman blessed with looks which defied description. Now she was beautifully dressed and presented, it could be seen that everything about her was perfection, from her deep blue eyes, her sweetly rounded lips, her perfectly sculpted cheekbones and flawless pale complexion, to her beautiful hair which was the colour of light ochre silk and which now had a cut and a style which enh
anced its fine and lustrous beauty.
‘They say, you know, that Society women stand on chairs to see Ellen Terry or the Countess of Dudley pass, madame,’ Monsieur Pierre said in almost religious tones to Alice. ‘But when they have sight of your daughter – I have this feeling that they will be standing on each others’ shoulders to see her pass by.’
Alice laughed in delight, but in secret as she studied the beauty of the girl sitting before them she was suddenly and absolutely sure that the Forresters’ ambitions for this most exquisite of girls would be fulfilled, and that by the end of the Season Alice herself would be sitting down to plan her the most fashionable of weddings.
* * *
As their carriage neared Tite Street, Alice Danby called to the driver to pull into a side street and to stop there for a moment.
‘What is it, Mamma?’ May enquired. ‘You’re not feeling unwell, are you? Because if we are we must turn for home at once.’
‘No,’ Alice replied carefully. ‘I am not feeling at all unwell.’
‘You have gone dreadfully pale.’
Alice Danby dropped her voice lest her coachman should hear. ‘That is because I am afraid, May darling. I am frightened to distraction, I have to admit it, of what we are about to do.’
May took her mother’s hand in hers and moved closer to her to give her comfort. ‘Don’t be afraid, Mamma. Please don’t,’ she said. ‘We cannot both be afraid. If we are then we most surely are lost. I need you to be strong. I am counting on you to be so.’
‘But you do not seem in the slightest bit anxious, May,’ Alice replied, looking round at her new daughter with a frown. ‘I have never seen such a picture of confidence. You positively radiate it.’
‘That is because I am frightened out of my wits, Mamma. That is the way I am when I am frightened. I have been alone and having to cope by myself for so long in my life that quite early on I found the only way I could deal with my fears when they came was to brazen it out. Everyone has always thought me overconfident, but really that is just my shield. Inside at this very moment, I’m a jelly.’ May smiled and gave her mother’s hand another squeeze. ‘The only possible way now is to inspire confidence in each other, and above all not to take anything we are about to do or see too seriously. So if you will be cheerful and confident again, then so will I. Immediately. At the drop of a hat, although fains it be mine! I am far too attached to it already!’
The sight of May’s beautiful face made even more luminous, if it were possible, by a smile of such radiant enchantment at once removed all Alice’s nerves and utterly restored both her sense of perspective and her humour. ‘You are right of course, May darling. We must treat this as it is. As an adventure. After all, they can hardly put us in prison for enjoying ourselves, can they? Eastman?’ Alice called up to their driver. ‘On to 31–33 Tite Street, please!’
By the time they arrived in Tite Street there was already a long queue of carriages outside 31–33 and out of these carriages were alighting a large crowd of the eminently fashionable, all of whose deliberately languorous manner could barely conceal their impatience to be allowed their way through the crowds of sightseers and infinitely less famous guests so that they could be among the first to stand and admire Mr Sargent’s latest masterpieces, subjects all hand-picked by himself and duly painted in the way that he alone wished for he would brook no advice nor advance criticism of his intentions from his sitters. Such was his power, and such was the sway in which he held Society.
‘There are far too many people here already,’ Alice whispered to May. ‘This I really was afraid of, this is something I was most anxious to avoid. We cannot have you getting lost in this mêlée, and jostled by this crowd. Eastman!’ she called up to her driver once more. ‘Pull out and circle round the nearby streets until I tell you otherwise, please!’
As the carriage drew away, Alice gave one last look at the scrummage which was growing ever larger behind them. ‘I should imagine another half an hour should suffice,’ she said to May. ‘By then that near riot should be over and the important people arriving. We shall have to take a chance on this, I’m afraid, May, the problem being not to arrive too late. Perhaps were we to draw up in the street across the road we could spot the late arrivals and when and if we see anyone important, then we should give them a few minutes’ start on us and then follow not in their wake, but shall we say on the crest of that particular wave?’
Having instructed their driver to do precisely that, much to the approval of May, they then waited to see who might be arriving at what Alice Danby considered the prime time, namely shortly after midday. Sure enough an immensely smart equipage bearing a famous coat of arms on its door turned into Tite Street just after the clock on the town hall had struck twelve.
‘Excellent!’ Alice exclaimed with a delighted smile. ‘I know that coat of arms. It’s the Suffolk family’s, and if I’m not very much mistaken the Earl is being followed in by Lady Randolph Churchill. So let us count up to three hundred, May darling, and then we shall make our entrance.’
They could not have timed it better had they spent a week rehearsing it. By the time Eastman placed the steps by the carriage door for them to alight, the crowd of sightseers which had grown considerably was being held back under the control of several policemen, while the queue of carriages had diminished to just one brougham which was moving off, having already discharged its passengers. As soon as they caught sight of May stepping out of the carriage not one but several people in the crowd gave an instinctive cheer, as if she was already somebody famous, or perhaps it might have been because the onlookers thought she must be famous because of her astonishing beauty. Whatever the reason, the cheer was immediately picked up by practically the whole crowd, and as May advanced past them towards the door of the studio many people shouted out wishes of good luck to her or for God to bless her. One grubby-faced little girl even managed to break through the cordon and run alongside May as she passed by, finally pressing a small bunch of violets into May’s gloved hand.
There was a small queue on the stairs leading up to the studio, and attracted by the sudden burst of cheering they had all turned round to see who or what had occasioned it the very moment May entered through the door. When the gentlemen saw her they quite forgot their manners and stared openly at the apparition which was making its way up the red-carpeted staircase towards them, while the women with them looked first at May and then at each other and then back at May almost as if to make sure that they belonged to the same human species. For her part May felt a sudden thrill of excitement at the stir she was causing, although such was her modesty that she did not ascribe the excitement to herself personally but rather more generally to the exhilaration of the moment, as if everyone there was caught up by the glamour of it all.
At the top of the stairs they were greeted by a handsome Italian gentleman who bowed and introduced himself as Nicolo, Mr Sargent’s manservant.
‘I feel this is most ignorant of me, because from your wonderful looks I surely must know you, signorina, but permit me to ask your name and that of your charming companion so that I may announce you,’ he said.
‘The Honourable Mrs Charles Danby and her daughter May,’ Alice informed him.
Nicolo bowed low, and then beckoned for them to follow him. At the entrance to the studio he hesitated for a moment then turned as if to hold the two women back.
‘We wait, please,’ he said. ‘The Master he is busy, so I wait to introduce you especially. I know, you see, that when he see you for the first time, he will not want this bother with other people, si? The Master he will want to see you just by your beautiful self, so we just wait a little.’
Alice and May exchanged a quick look. May’s was out of sheer delight, while Alice’s look had May been able to read it would have told her that if May had the same effect on the great painter as she was so obviously having on his manservant, then she was as good as home and dry. For should she be selected by the great painter to sit for hi
m as one of the Season’s beauties, then there was really no saying as to what her future might be.
The moment those surrounding Mr Sargent moved away to make room for the next guest Nicolo moved like lightning, nodding to May to follow him at once while guiding Alice gently by one elbow. ‘Master,’ he urged. ‘I have someone you must see. And by herself, if you will be so kind, since Nicolo knows you will not be disappointed. So please – may I present the Honourable Mrs Charles Denbeigh and her most charming daughter Miss May Denbeigh.’
The painter’s eyes said it all as they took in the picture before him. Even as he inclined his head as May curtsied to him his eyes never left her face. Even his greeting to her mother was little more than cursory. Not that Alice minded in the very least, although she did bother to correct the mispronunciation of her name so that there would be no doubts in the future as to the identity of his enchanting young guest.
‘Mrs Danby, forgive me,’ Sargent said with a smile, before taking one pace back from May as if to get a wholly better look at her. As he did those people behind him also stood back and they looked where the great man was looking so that for the next few minutes it seemed all the attention was centred on May, as if she herself was a masterpiece from which the drapes had just been dropped. Aware that all eyes were on her, May smiled at the man who stood appraising her and then turned her own attention to a canvas to one side of them which was labelled The Honourable Mrs Healy Hutchinson. She took a half step forward as if to get a better sight of it, while the man who had painted the magnificent portrait remained watching her and her alone.
‘If I may say so, sir, this is the most lovely portrait,’ May said.
‘Why thank you, Miss Danby,’ John Singer Sargent replied. ‘But in my opinion however good the painting and however beautiful the sitter, it pales besides your own astonishing looks.’
‘And that is most kind of you, sir,’ May replied, smiling up at Sargent briefly before re-examining the painting. ‘If I may make so bold, sir, I would like to praise this portrait for both its elegance and its dashing fluidity.’
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