There was a long silence during which Alice Danby stared at her new acquaintance for some seconds before she could speak to the calm woman sitting across the room from her.
‘That is one of the very worst stories I have ever heard,’ Alice finally said. ‘I cannot begin to think what to say to you by way of consolation.’
‘You are very kind,’ Lady Patrycia said, ‘but nothing anyone can say or do will ever obliterate the pain, or bring my beloved John back to me. Even so, my spirit is by no means broken, though I must confess for a long time I feared it might well be. But it is not, thank God, and the longer I live now the more determined I am that Daisy Lanford shall in some way pay for her wickedness, for believe you me she is a very evil woman. She seduced my John as surely as she seduces any man to this day. In fact I have been told that it is her practice to wait for the births of babies before descending on what she full well knows is easy prey. She is indeed wicked.’
‘The man behind all this believes so too, Lady Patrycia,’ Alice replied, and when her visitor wondered quite what she meant Alice hesitated, wondering at first whether she should tell someone who after all was all but a total stranger to her the full truth of the story of her adopted daughter and the man behind the enterprise. But it was only a momentary hesitation because her visitor and she seemed to have struck up an immediate intimacy, enough indeed for Lady Patrycia to confide in Alice the full details of her own personal tragedy. So after only the briefest of pauses for thought Alice told her visitor the whole story to which the lady-in-waiting listened without interruption.
‘Perfect,’ she said when Alice had finished. ‘You do know of course it could not be more perfect? Whoever thinks that there is not a divinity which shapes our ends can only be thinking nonsense! This entire enterprise has been designed to humiliate a woman who has done nothing but cause grief and misery wherever she goes. I remember the snub well. I was not at the famous party at Wynyates but several friends were and of course it was the talk of Society for months afterwards. There was even a horribly cruel vogue for talking Yorkshire, as they called it. I found the whole business most unsavoury and happily those who took pleasure in it do not move in quite the same circles that I do. None the less, like everyone in Society I was all too well aware of Daisy Lanford’s deliberate cruelty. A lesser man than your Mr Forrester might well not have survived such a humiliation.’
‘So really then, Lady Patrycia, we are back to wondering what it is you want,’ Alice said. ‘I know what it is I want, or rather I know what it is I am meant to achieve, but what precisely do you think that you may do?’
‘A very good and a very proper question, Mrs Danby,’ the lady-in-waiting replied. ‘Now then, here is precisely what I propose, but it all depends on the temperament and indeed on the essential cooperation of your beautiful daughter. For you see Daisy Evesham as you most probably know has a rather favoured son, and by including him we might well be able to elaborate rather successfully on your friend and mentor’s original design.’
* * *
Harry Lanford was still out of town. He had been expected to arrive back in London for the ball the night before but had failed to appear. His mother, who had been in a high state of excitement, received no word of his whereabouts so that by the time she and Emily were dressed and ready to leave for dinner they were finally forced to go ahead without him, Daisy hoping against hope, for she was well used to her son’s irresponsible ways, that he might perhaps have been unavoidably delayed and was intending to go straight to their mutual dinner appointment in Albemarle Street. When he failed to arrive there either, Daisy made excuses for him to their host with only the faintest of hopes left that Harry might at least turn up for the ball at Wilton House, which again, most unfortunately, he did not.
Bored and disappointed with his failure to fulfil her expectations, Daisy once more turned her attentions back to rekindling Captain Pilkington’s interest in Emily, something she had been notably failing to do over the last fortnight. But by the time she had refocused herself and set out to find her wayward protégée, Emily was lost in the throng of the dancers. So used had she been to finding Emily beached on the sidelines that Daisy had quite failed to notice that since her arrival Emily had not missed a dance and the reason for this was that she had that very night decided to take Matthew Arnold’s poem to heart and had resolved to be herself. The consequence was of course and quite naturally that in rediscovering her true self she lost her misery.
Emily’s loss was the delight of the many jaded young men who were already beginning to become both dull and dulled, due either to the pace of an unusually energetic Season or simply to the monotony of the social round. So the discovery of a vibrant and unpredictable Irish girl was just, it seemed, what they all decided they needed, as a consequence of which Lady Emily Persse was never off the dance floor.
To Emily it seemed as if she had done the easiest thing in the world, for all she had done was resume speaking the way she had always spoken since she was first allowed to wander round the stables after Mikey, laughing the way she had always laughed, and enjoying herself the way she had always enjoyed herself. But rather in the way that as soon as she came into a room May seemed to enthral people by her sheer but inexplicable quality so did Emily now captivate them by her very vitality. Compared to the affected manners of the English girls with their air of faint ennui, Emily Persse’s enthusiasm for life and above all her sense of enjoyment was a breath of fresh air across the ballroom of Wilton House, and much as many racegoers are able to pick the winner from the way the horse goes down to the start, so too did the young men of London pick their winner that evening.
Daisy had of course missed all this excitement while searching for her errant son, so when she finally made her way to where she expected to find Emily deserted and alone on a gilt chair and discovered her missing, she asked a member of her party what had become of her charge, only to be told that the poor gel had never had a single moment to sit down, such was the crowd around her from the very start of the dancing.
‘Ven vare must be an awful lot of plain and dull Janes here vis evening, vat’s all I can say,’ Daisy replied, more to herself and not in the best of tempers. ‘Eiver vat or all ve young men are sozzled. Ah – Captain Pilkington!’ Daisy managed to catch her adored soldier’s eye as he wandered past looking, Daisy thought, just a trifle dazed. ‘Dear Captain Pilkington, I have been looking for you all evening. Are you all right? You do not quite look your usual self.’
‘Forgive me, Lady Evesham, but you are right. I am not quite my usual self,’ Captain Pilkington replied. ‘But then neither is your protégée Lady Emily. In fact if anyone is not herself it is she, or rather she is indeed her old self, yes indeed.’
‘You are not quite making sense, sir,’ Daisy said. ‘What precisely is my charge up to now, pray?’
‘I would hazard a guess that taking the place by storm might be the correct expression, Lady Evesham. Just wait until the end of this dance, which should be any minute now, and you will see exactly what I mean by it.’
Daisy did as she was instructed and watched. As she did she at last caught sight of Emily, slap bang in the middle of the action, dancing a polka as if it had never been danced before, to the delight of the young men dancing all around her and the barely concealed fury of their neglected partners. At the very moment the music stopped, when most young ladies and gentlemen should properly be making their measured way back to the sidelines for the men to see their partners back to their places, instead there was near mayhem as girls were almost unceremoniously hurried back to their seats and immediately abandoned by their partners who almost as one dashed to find Lady Emily Persse to beg her for the next dance.
‘One imagines from your expression, Captain Pilkington, vat you have already had ve pleasure vis evening,’ Daisy remarked.
‘I have to admit I was being dutiful, Lady Evesham, intending to do as you requested me to do, that is to give your charge another chance at engagi
ng my interest. This is why I said a moment ago that Lady Emily is back to being her old self, because barely had I asked her for the pleasure of a dance than I was being entertained and enthralled as I cannot remember ever being on a dance floor. In fact the last time I had quite so much sheer fun was when Lady Emily and I were following hounds in Galway and she very nearly killed us both jumping a seemingly limitless chasm.’
‘She is back to her old self is she, ve minx,’ Daisy wondered to herself. ‘We shall see about vat, so we shall.’
‘I am sorry, Lady Evesham,’ Captain Pilkington said over the noise of the orchestra which had now struck up again. ‘I didn’t quite catch what you just said.’
‘I was simply saying how lovely it is vat Emily has relaxed and is enjoying herself,’ Daisy replied. ‘I fear she found ve beginning of ve Season a trifle overwhelming. But now her presentation is out of ve way, she is obviously back in sorts.’
‘Indeed she is, Lady Evesham,’ Captain Pilkington said with a sigh, watching as another lucky young man began to dance with the effervescent auburn-haired beauty who had recaptured his heart. ‘Indeed she is. So much so that I almost feel like ignoring the rule book and dancing another wretched dance with her! In fact I think I shall because I think l am going to have to!’
So it was that chic Captain Peter Pilkington of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons shocked London Society by dancing not only a second dance with a young unmarried woman but a third one immediately after the second. So shocking was the effect that by the time the couple were dancing their second consecutive dance practically everyone else on the dance floor had stopped dancing to watch. But this did not deter Captain Pilkington and his now famous partner. On the contrary it seemed to spur them on, and they danced as if inspired, so much so that when the music stopped, after a moment of utter silence all of the young people gathered there broke into spontaneous applause, which naturally only shocked the older generation even more. Undeterred by the backs being turned on them by dowagers and the like, Captain Pilkington and Lady Emily Persse then acknowledged the applause, the captain drawing himself to attention before formally bowing to the crowd while Emily sank into yet another perfect curtsey.
‘Well now,’ Daisy said to him after he had escorted Emily back to her place and rejoined the Evesham party. ‘You know of course vare’s only one fing you can do now, don’t you, Captain Pilkington.’
‘Indeed I do, Lady Evesham,’ Captain Pilkington replied.
‘Of course you do. You’re going to have to marry ve girl.’
‘Of course I am. I fully intend to propose marriage to her this very night, and if her father did not live in Galway I would call on him tomorrow morning.’
As it transpired he did propose marriage, and although Emily did not turn him down, she did tell him that she would need to consider his proposal before she could make him an answer. Captain Pilkington replied that he understood perfectly and that he would not expect otherwise, but requested Emily that she might try to make up her mind quickly because he was not at all sure he could stand any sort of a wait. Emily laughed and assured him that she would not tease him so unmercifully, and that he may expect her reply by the end of the next week, that is after Royal Ascot.
* * *
In return for her cooperation May extorted the promise of yet another trip to Daly’s new theatre in Cranbourne Street to see Marie Tempest and Hayden Coffin in the new hit musical play An Artist’s Model, although the person who most caught her eye and her admiration was the second lead Letty Lind, a beautiful and extremely graceful blonde who had made her name as a dancer on the Gaiety Burlesques and was one of George the Guv’nor Edwardes’ personal favourites.
May had made no secret of her fascination with the theatre ever since she had first persuaded Alice to take her to one. As it may be recalled, she had already avowed to Herbert Forrester on only their second meeting that what she most wanted to be in life was an actress. When she made this assertion she had of course no idea of what the theatre was really like. The love for it was simply in her blood although she had no way of knowing from which particular branch of the family this passion sprung. Not that it mattered a whit for its existence was the most important part of the metaphysical fabric, not its origin, and the moment May walked into a theatre and saw her first production she felt a sense of belonging which grew stronger each time she found herself a member of an audience.
Fortunately her adoptive mother was an enthusiastic playgoer but one who enjoyed straight plays or comedies more than their musical counterparts. None the less so much did she adore her adopted daughter that she was just as happy to take May to see George Edwardes’ latest productions rather than Irving’s current Shakespearean offering because they were so lavishly staged and so thoroughly entertaining. She was also a great admirer of Oscar Wilde, having seen and enjoyed all his light comedies, particularly his latest work which was considered by everyone to be his best, The Importance of Being Earnest, managing by sheer chance to see it early in its run before it was hurriedly withdrawn when Wilde, with what everyone considered to be incredible folly, brought his action for criminal libel against the Marquess of Queensberry who had been entirely responsible for bringing Wilde to court for the love the playwright had for the beautiful but dissolute Lord Alfred Douglas. Alice had discussed the whole affaire about what everyone was now calling the love that knows no name with her daughter although not in full, because even Alice Danby who due to her high intelligence understood the implications of this trial better than most of her contemporaries still did not consider such a subject suitable for debate with a girl who had not yet finished her coming out.
Besides, May was far more enraptured by what she saw in the theatre than by what went on either backstage or in the private lives of the theatricals themselves. All she really wanted was to act and being the utterly honest person that she was it was a matter she often discussed with her mother. Alice, while privately disapproving of the growing determination May was showing to tread the boards, explained that it was not for either of them to make such a decision at this time and that the first thing they had to do because of the nature of May’s adoption was to see the Season through. There was, as Alice explained, always the chance that May would meet someone with whom she would fall in love and prefer to marry instead, and while May admitted this as a possibility privately she did not allow it to be a distinct one. Her heart was already given, and when she was not at the theatre itself she spent her spare time dreaming not of handsome and wealthy young men but of the plays she had just seen and her favourite performers.
It was solely because of this passion that May agreed to partake in the stratagem as hatched by Lady Patrycia ffitch-Heyes and agreed by May’s adoptive mother. There were two perfectly good reasons for an otherwise so utterly upright and honest girl to let herself become involved in what was after all a subterfuge. Firstly, May saw it as a chance to try her hand at acting a role in full, even though the role was to be played not on stage but in real life, and secondly she considered that if she proved herself to be convincing to all concerned she might finally be able to persuade her adoptive mother to allow her to achieve her ambition, for she was totally convinced that there was absolutely no chance of her falling in love with any of the eligible young men who had constantly besieged her with flowers and invitations ever since she had made her now famous first appearance on Picture Sunday. It was indeed a known fact that some of her most passionate admirers were to be found practising their intended proposals of marriage to John Singer Sargent’s recently completed portrait of May which now hung in the Royal Academy where it had been greatly admired by Society in the Summer Exhibition.
And so it was that the little faction lay in wait for their prey. Nor did they have to wait very long, although they did have to be patient, for already on several occasions Daisy Evesham as if getting wind of something or indeed as if hatching some plot of her own had proffered invitations to May and her mother either to join her party a
t some dance or to attend one of her famous dinner parties, even before Lady Patrycia ffitch-Heyes’s first visit to the Danby home in Park Lane. All such invitations were however refused, the earlier ones because of Herbert Forrester’s specific advice and the recent ones because since Harry Lanford was notoriously unreliable the stratagem as planned necessitated that he and May met as it were on neutral ground. The last thing Lady Patrycia and Alice Danby wished – or indeed Herbert Forrester now he had been apprised of the plan – was for it to look as though their side was out to snare Lord Lanford. For Daisy Evesham’s son, although a well-known reprobate due to his gambling, drinking and womanizing habits and despite his appalling reputation, manners and disreputable appearance, none the less was still considered a notable catch, if not indeed one of the catches of the Season, his worth being entirely due to the vastness of the Lanford fortune which had been settled on him by his grandfather. If May could indeed pull off the planned coup given the thoroughly unappealing nature of the selected target, then she would indeed prove herself to be no mean actress.
Ascot Week seemed the ideal time to work the oracle, and with Ladies’ Day specifically in mind May was prepared with perhaps even greater care than she had been on the day of her presentation. Herbert Forrester had already ordered her a specially commissioned gown from Mr Worth, which had been built for May without a single fitting. Initially this had not met with the approval of the famous couturier, but since Herbert Forrester by now had spent a small fortune at the House of Worth the great man threw away the rule book and did as requested. Besides the design itself, the task was perfectly straightforward because of course May was blessed with a perfect figure, a waist of eighteen inches, corseted naturally but not unduly so, a bust of thirty-four and hips of thirty-two inches and no imperfections whatsoever, allowing those making the dress to work as if in Utopia. Everyone at Park Lane who was concerned with May’s preparation was stunned when the gown finally arrived from Paris and even more so when May was dressed ready for Gold Cup Day. The dress was tightly bodiced with a high neckline highlighted by a large black and white bow tied at the neck. The arms of the short sleeves which ended in tight bands just above the elbow were almost even larger than fashion decreed, but so excellently cut and shaped that the exaggeration only added to the theatricality of the dress, as did the band of black and white around the tiny waist and three quarters of the way down the skirt. Her hat was to match, enormous and with a large striped black and white bow set to one side of it and teamed with a silk parasol again in black and white. Because the dress was dramatically simple yet so superbly cut the effect was breathtaking, particularly when those looking on took into account the ravishing beauty of the wearer. May was thrilled with what she teasingly called her costume while her mother could find no words to describe how she herself felt.
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