Debutantes

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Yes, well,’ Minnie replied in her most comforting tones, passing the sal volatile once more under her mistress’s pretty nose. ‘Well, if you had some good days out at home in Ireland then what’s one good night out going to do to you in London, right? Crowds is crowds anywhere, Lady Emily. You’ll be all right now, don’t you worry. Soon as you finds your feet.’

  ‘I know where my feet are, thank you, Minnie. It’s getting to them that might prove a little difficult. I do feel most dreadfully light-headed.’

  At this point several mothers came into the room to chivvy along their various charges, their concern being that the duke was due to descend any moment and the ball to commence, so it was vital they should all hurry and get to their places. The room immediately became an even busier hive of activity as all the young women and their maids ensured that nothing was amiss and that everything was in its rightful place. Everyone that is except Emily whom Minnie simply could not get to move from her chair.

  ‘Can I help?’ someone asked very kindly behind Minnie. ‘Is there something the matter with your mistress?’

  Minnie turned and as she did she almost literally gasped when she saw the creature who was standing before her, for she had never seen anyone as staggeringly beautiful as the blond-haired, blue-eyed young woman who had come to show her concern for her poor afflicted mistress who was now sitting with her head leant back and her eyes closed. To Minnie all that seemed to be missing from the vision of loveliness was a shimmering halo behind this angel’s head.

  ‘I don’t rightly know what ails ’er, milady,’ Minnie said, assuming that a person as beautiful as this young woman must sport the very best of pedigrees. ‘She wasn’t ’erself gettin’ out of our carriage, and then when she come in ’ere I thought she were goin’ to keel right over.’

  ‘How simply wretched for her,’ the vision said. ‘Perhaps if I could place my hands on your mistress’s forehead. I have sometimes found in the past that this has a very good effect in such cases. And by the way, you have no need to address me as milady. I am just plain and ordinary Miss Danby.’

  Minnie resisted the temptation to reply that there was nothing either plain nor ordinary about the angel who had come to their rescue, but afraid that it might be considered an impertinence she simply made way and allowed May Danby to come and stand in front of the still stricken Emily. All the other young women were now far too preoccupied with making the final adjustments to their gowns, their hair and their jewellery to pay the invalid the slightest bit of attention, so that May was able to go about her ministrations without attracting either notice or ridicule.

  The first thing Emily was aware of was a feeling of utter calm. When she recalled the incident to herself later she could not even remember the touch of May’s hands on her, all she could sense was this feeling of complete tranquillity, as if whatever demon had temporarily possessed her had been banished. Then when she opened her eyes she saw nothing but light. She saw no-one’s face, no outline of anyone’s head, no shape of someone’s body even, just an aura of light and as she did she felt this feeling of calm and then the sensation that all her confidence was being restored to her. What happened next she was never to be sure, but Emily seemed to recall closing her eyes but for how long she had no idea. Later she just remembered the light and the feeling of calm, then a moment as if she was either asleep or faint, and then reopening her eyes and seeing the most radiant of faces looking down at her, a face which Emily was later to describe as intoxicatingly beautiful, lovely enough to stun her senses and make her head swim, sweet and kind enough to make her convinced she had died and was now being administered to by an archangel.

  ‘Is that what you are, in fact?’ Emily whispered as two big blue eyes looked down at her. ‘Are you something or somebody divine? Because I don’t understand what is happening.’

  ‘All that has happened, Lady Emily,’ May replied, having learned her patient’s identity from Minnie, ‘is that you fainted. Either due to the heat of the room, to the tightness of your corset—’

  ‘It wouldn’t be my corset, no,’ Emily sighed, beginning to sit back up and take notice of her surroundings. ‘I won’t ever let them lace me too tight for I don’t believe that it’s natural.’

  ‘Then perhaps you just fainted at the prospect which faces us all,’ May suggested. ‘At the thought of what we are all going to have to undergo.’

  ‘I am not generally of a nervous disposition,’ Emily announced. ‘Back home I will jump anything on horse, be the jump blind or sighted.’

  ‘Back home I take it being in Ireland,’ May returned.

  ‘Oh Christmas,’ Emily whispered as she remembered. ‘Minnie – didn’t I give you strict instructions—’

  ‘But Lady Emily—’ Minnie pleaded. ‘’Ow was I to know you’d faint and forget your manners when you woke? I was that worried any’ow I never give it a second thought.’

  ‘No no, of course not, Minnie,’ Emily said, squeezing her worried maid’s rough little hand. ‘Now I had better pull myself together and get to the meet, or you know who will be in here looking for me.’

  ‘Do you think you’re quite all right now?’ May asked, straightening herself up and easing the tucks back out of her gown.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Emily groaned. ‘What has become of my manners? I don’t even know who you are, nor have I extended you my thanks.’

  ‘My name is May Danby, Lady Emily, and you have not the slightest need to thank me,’ May replied. ‘I have this odd little gift – not that it always works, but it usually does. It’s something I discovered when I was at – when I was growing up.’

  Emily looked at her saviour as if unable to decide who or what she quite was exactly. Then she too rose, allowing Minnie to straighten out her own gown, checked her hair in a looking glass and adjusted her corsage which had fallen a degree or two adrift.

  ‘In all honesty, Miss Danby, I didn’t think I was going to be able to face what is about to happen out there,’ she confessed. ‘Yet now thanks to you once again I feel I have the wind at my back. Thank you.’ She turned to face May who smiled sweetly back at her.

  ‘I think it was most fortuitous, Lady Emily,’ she replied. ‘Until I saw your predicament I too was thinking of finding a place to hide.’

  This Emily found hard to believe, that a young woman blessed with the most perfect looks she had ever seen should be feeling assailed by the same fears which had beset Emily seemed preposterous.

  ‘I have the feeling you are just saying that to bring me even more comfort,’ Emily said with a grin. ‘In case I pass out and fall on top of you and no-one finds you for the rest of the evening.’

  May laughed in genuine amusement and took Emily’s hand. ‘I shall tell you what you can do for me in return,’ she said. ‘You can come and sit by me because I too have this appalling dread that no-one will ask me to dance.’

  Now it was Emily’s turn to laugh. ‘You have about as much chance of not being asked to dance as I have of remembering my accent,’ she said. ‘But as to that, not a word.’

  ‘I am the best keeper of secrets you will ever hope to meet,’ May assured her, squeezing her new friend’s hand. ‘But only if you promise to sit with me.’

  ‘My hat, I have no option now,’ Emily returned as Minnie held the cloakroom door open for them to make their entrances into Society.

  ‘Good luck,’ Minnie whispered. ‘I ’opes it all goes smashin’.’

  As they emerged Alice Danby who had been waiting with growing anxiety for May to reappear saw her daughter and started to make her way towards her and the lovely auburn-haired girl she now had as a companion. As too did Daisy Evesham, who had long since left the cloakroom so that she could catch up on all the gossip before everyone descended the great staircase which led down to the fast-filling ballroom. Her feelings on seeing Emily with May, however, were entirely opposite to Alice Danby’s.

  ‘What can you be finking?’ she hissed at Emily, tugging her apart from May. ‘Do y
ou wish to go unnoticed, you silly fing? Because vat is what will happen if you choose to make your entrance wiff vat young lady.’ Emily turned and mouthed at May that she would see her inside as her patron continued quite unceremoniously to separate them. ‘And besides,’ Daisy continued, ‘what on earff took you so long? I fought vat you must have been taken ill or somefing, for I cannot understand what else could have kept you, you silly gel.’

  Daisy rapped Emily lightly on her gloved hand as they made for the elegant staircase lined with liveried flunkeys with the wonderfully dressed and bejewelled Daisy winning admiring looks from those who already knew her and those who were seeing her in person for the first time, but not as many she realized as she heard the growing buzz of excitement behind her as the very latest social discovery who was now making her own way down to the ballroom.

  She knew who it was without looking back, without even taking one secret glance in the many mirrors which lined the staircase all the way down. She had known who was going to be that Season’s sensation the moment she had laid eyes on her in John Singer Sargent’s studio, but still she remained rooted in the conviction that this Miss May Danby was a girl of little consequence, and that once the predators had found out that beyond her beauty she was of no real worth and realized that her beauty after all would finally fade, then the race would start in earnest to see who could win the most genuinely eligible debutante of the Season.

  Even so, however hard Daisy tried not to let the wide-scale impression this girl of no consequence was making irk her, irk her it most certainly did and now more particularly than ever because to Daisy’s private astonishment as Miss May Danby entered the ballroom itself people began politely to applaud her, as if she was responsible for some other achievement than just having been born beautiful. Not just one or two people either, such as parvenus perhaps who knew no better, but people of degree, people of quality, people of the highest title were turning to look at and to smile upon this angelic young woman who was making her graceful way across the floor in the company of her mother. As far as she could remember Daisy had not seen anyone applauded in this manner on her debut. In fact other than for her renowned self she could not remember seeing such a spontaneous display of approval from bystanders ever, although as she well knew any recognition bestowed on Daisy was by the public and not from her peers. What annoyed Daisy even more was that she knew that she had no right to feel this way since this girl was of no concern to her whatsoever, not even if (and as if such a thing were even remotely possible!) her beloved Captain Pilkington was fool enough to fall for her because the only way he could enjoy her own delights would be to marry the wretched innocent, which would play right into Daisy’s hands. Even suppose the dashing captain chose to marry Miss May Danby instead of Emily, once the bedroom curtains were finally drawn and the lights lowered no callow young girl could possibly hope to match the sexual skills of Daisy Evesham, skills which Daisy well knew young Captain Pilkington was more than eager to sample as soon as he might, rather than the simple offerings of an inexperienced virgin.

  Yet. Yet Daisy Evesham was bothered, and badly so. There was something more than just her beauty which made people notice this young woman and Daisy could not even begin to identify what this particular characteristic was. It could hardly be her personality because she had been given no chance whatsoever to shine yet, other than her sensational but rather brief and almost private encounter with Society’s favourite portrait painter. Neither as far as Daisy could gather was anything known about the girl in advance which could in any way explain the undue interest she aroused. No-one seemed to know anything at all about her background other than that her father had been invalided out of the cavalry and that her mother was born well enough but as the last daughter of quite a long line of sons and daughters had been left with a very indifferent inheritance.

  And yet. Daisy stood for a moment and studied what was happening all around her, although she was far too seasoned a campaigner to let her true feelings show. This girl had the eye of everyone, from the eldest unmarried sons of the best families to the heads of those families too, both the fathers and the mothers. And from notably snobbish excessively correct dowagers too, to those selfsame dowagers’ still single and now apparently confirmed spinster relatives, each and every one of the afore-named either standing or sitting with smiles of beatific pleasure on their faces, young and old, handsome or plum ugly, as this perfect vision in simple white floated gracefully past their parties.

  Daisy was determined to know who she really was, and then as the realization dawned she very nearly let out a peal of laughter, so sudden was the revelation. She knew precisely who this girl was and precisely why she was here. Miss May Danby was her trial. Miss May Danby had been sent specifically to try Daisy by testing her mettle, something Daisy had known sooner or later must inevitably come to pass. When a person was as beautiful and influential as Daisy Lanford – still was, mind! – she privately warned the Society which was busy now turning its adoration onto this marsh light, this illusion, this mirage. Because Daisy Lanford was no blown rose, no no – no, Daisy Lanford was still very much of the day today, not the day which was gone and was already yesterday – and when a person was as famous and famously beautiful as Daisy Lanford then sooner or later someone or something was sent to try that person. May Danby was her trial, the beautiful, the angelic, the mysterious Miss May Danby.

  So what do they expect me to do? Daisy wondered as she continued to watch the progress of the girl across the ballroom. At the very least they expect me to be jealous of her and to show my jealousy, and at most they expect me to snub her. Well, I shall do neither, she smiled to herself, her decision having been reached. As usual I shall surprise everybody by my total unpredictability and instead of seeing this young woman as a challenge to my position or ignoring her presence as if elle n’existe pas, I shall embrace her as if she were my protégée. There! Then let Society make what it may of that!

  Thus, and much to the general astonishment of the company already surrounding the Countess of Evesham, as Miss May Danby passed the countess by, far from turning away and pretending to be otherwise occupée as most had predicted would be her reaction, Daisy raised her two immaculately kid-gloved hands and applauded. At once all her supporters did the same, standing in a semi-circle around their mentor to acknowledge Society’s latest comet. In return May smiled demurely while making her way towards where her mother had suggested she might sit, still with her eyes cast modestly down, just as she had been taught and just as she had seen the novice nuns in her convent do.

  ‘I have changed my mind, Emily darling,’ Daisy whispered to her protégée, who had taken her place by her side as May had been crossing the floor with her mother. ‘Vare is no reason at all why you should not go and sit next to the pretty young girl if you so wish. So go on – go and make friends wiff her, for she does look really quite sweet. But no!’ she called to Emily before she had gone half a dozen paces. ‘Not at ve gallop. Not even at ve canter. Gracefully, Emily, wiff tiny little steps, just as we have shewn you. Ovverwise you will look like a circus horse.’

  Because she could not hurry Emily had hardly seated herself on a gilt chair beside her new friend and her saviour before the orchestra struck up a mazurka. At once all the debutantes who by custom were all seated together down one end of the ballroom in as it were a sea of shimmering white immediately fell to lightly fanning themselves and talking to each other, feigning a complete indifference as to whether or not they were going to be asked to dance by the gentlemen lined up at the other end of the floor.

  ‘Where would you really like to be at this very moment?’ Emily whispered to May as they both sat fanning themselves lightly. ‘If you could choose anywhere in the whole world, including here of course, where would you most like to be?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’ May wondered from behind her fan. ‘I shall only tell you if you promise not to be shocked.’

  ‘I take a great deal of shocki
ng, I assure you,’ Emily replied. ‘Mine is easy. I should most like to be out on Jack – he’s my favourite horse, do you see? I should be out on Jack on a fine spring morning riding by the shores of Lough Corrib, with the fuchsia out in the hedges and the yellow gorse blowing in the wind.’

  ‘Where I would like to be right now,’ May whispered back, ‘would be in the chorus line of The Shop Girl at the Gaiety Theatre.’

  Emily looked round at her new friend in wide-eyed astonishment, only to be greeted by an enormous smile from May. ‘There,’ said May. ‘I said it would shock you.’

  That was as far as their conversation went at present, because the moment everyone had been waiting for had all but arrived now that the Duke of Salisbury and his son the Marquess of Huntingford had reached that part of the ballroom where all the debutantes were seated. Both were so impeccably dressed in perfectly tailored full dress uniform that it would be difficult for the debutantes in their plain white dresses not to feel eclipsed by them.

  As the two men walked towards them the young women continued slowly to fan themselves, affecting the highly fashionable ennui as they watched the progress of the host and his son, all the while wondering which of their number would be selected as partners for the first dance, an honour which would consolidate the reputation of the two who were chosen for the rest of the Season, if not their lives. Only selection by a prince of the blood had more éclat.

  To nothing more than the sound of the orchestra playing its mazurka and the faint breeze made by the debutantes’ fans the duke and his son at last parted company, having made their final selection. Everyone held their breath, not just the young women themselves, but their mothers and their patrons, their fathers, their brothers, married sisters and their friends. The greatest honour of course was to be chosen as the Marquess of Huntingford’s first partner for the evening, although failing that selection to be chosen by his father was hardly less of a privilege. But the duke’s eldest son, heir to the vast Salisbury fortune, possessed that most desirable quality of all. He was still a bachelor.