Debutantes

by Charlotte Bingham

  Not so to the captain’s heart, however, where the thought of marrying the auburn-haired Irish girl brought jubilation, for he had become so smitten with Emily that he seriously thought that life without her would have little point or direction. So it was with the utmost eagerness he awaited Emily’s answer, intending to post news of the engagement at once in the London Gazette should his proposal be accepted. Daisy assured him that he need entertain no worries to the contrary. All the older women of discernment had already noted him as being the year’s most attractive and engaging man.

  Quite how Daisy would take the news if her dashing captain’s proposal was accepted, however, was something of which Daisy herself grew more uncertain every day. She was beginning to get the more than distinct feeling that on this occasion she might have outsmarted herself, for she had seen what she truly discerned as the love light in Captain Pilkington’s eyes, and during those few rare moments generally late at night which Daisy set aside in a half-hearted attempt to be honest with herself she began to have very real doubts as to whether or not she would be able to seduce him after he was married at all, because even though Captain Pilkington only referred to Emily in the most formal of terms it was increasingly obvious that he was wearing the ass’s head. But Daisy had never been one to run from battle, and so she refused to consider the possibility that her plan might backfire until such was proved to be the case. All she would grant at this moment was that it might take a little longer than planned to get Captain Pilkington into her bed, but relying on past experience she reckoned that like most newly married men he would soon become bored with his little virgin and the moment he began to look for more sophisticated pleasures, Daisy would be there at hand.

  Meanwhile, by way of consolation, there was now her beloved son Harry’s position to consider, and finding him alone in a darkened corner of the library during the height of the celebrations at Sunning Lodge – and not only alone but what was even more unusual stone cold sober – Daisy sat herself down next to him in the deserted room and asked him whatever was the matter.

  ‘Why, Mamma,’ he sighed, ‘you are going to think this preposterous, most particularly coming from one who has not had a sober notion in his head for God knows how long, but I am very much afraid I have become smitten.’

  ‘My darling boy,’ Daisy sighed. ‘Why should I fink such a fing preposterous?’

  ‘Because of the person with whom I am so utterly smitten, Mamma, that is why.’

  ‘If it is ve girl vat I fink it is—’

  ‘Yes, yes – it is all very well for you, Mamma. In matters such as this – in affairs of the heart – you have never had to think twice. You have simply said yes – that is what I want – and you have it. Who has ever been able to resist you? But me? I am a totally different fish. Yes, I am rich, very rich indeed, but this is precisely why I have long since had no real interest in any young women because they are all – all of them – they are all fortune hunters. And there is no use trying to deny this because I know perfectly well that none of them have wished to marry me for my looks, or my charm. Or my habits. I may be many things, a sot, a roué, a gambler – what you will. But I am not a complete fool, Mamma, and no-one is going to love me for just being me. And now this. When I do fall in love it has to be with the most beautiful presentee not of this Season but according to all the experts of any given Season whatsoever!’

  ‘Why fank you, dear boy,’ Daisy said icily. ‘How very gallant.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Harry moaned. ‘Every Season that is excepting yours, Mamma! You know that! That goes without saying!’

  ‘It used to, you mean, darling boy. Until Mamma began to lose a little of her looks.’

  ‘What a nonsense, Mamma. You know you have not lost a shred of your looks. But I am not talking about you – I am talking about me. And this girl for whom I now have such a passion that if she does not marry me then I really think I shall kill myself!’

  ‘No-one is worff vat, Harry. Please get vat straight here and now,’ Daisy returned at once. ‘Love is all very well, but it is finally a bauble. What matters above all else is position, and only if a gentleman should lose his position to such a degree vat he also loses his dignity and becomes a laughing stock, ven and only ven may he consider ve taking of his life. And what is more he should do it, too.’

  ‘Yes I know, but even so, Mamma,’ Harry moaned. ‘You know the girl. And is she not the most beautiful of all the girls you have seen come our way? And is she not the most talked about presentee you can remember? Saving yourself, of course. You know she is, as you know that she has half – no, the whole of London and the shires after her! What chance do I have? What chance at all? None, I tell you. None, none, none.’

  ‘You are of course talking nonsense, dear boy,’ Daisy said. ‘You underestimate yourself and you always have. In matters such as vis I am an aufority, and I am told vat as far as Society goes no-one knows more about love and its significances van I. So I have to tell you vat a girl of no real consequence such as Miss Danby, no matter how beautiful she may or may not be, cannot even begin to consider whevver or not she may be in love wiff someone such as you, d’you see? A girl such as she is in no need of any such contemplation. She will only have one concern and vat is do you wish to marry her. Vat is what she will be waiting to know. It is simply not her place even to consider for one short moment whevver she may or may not love you. She needs must marry you because she will have no real choice in ve matter, not if her muvver has anyfing to do wiff it, and I too. If you want her for a wife ven you will ask her, she will accept and vat will be ve end of it. So if I were you, dear boy, I would pull myself togevver and remember who I was. Remember vat you are ve fiff Baron Lanford and one of ve richest of ve young and eligible men. Vis gel will be honoured to receive your affections and even more honoured to be elevated to ve peerage by becoming your wife. Vat is ve way Society works. And ve day it no longer works like vis – if vat should ever prove to be ve case and I only hope and pray vat I am long dead by ven – vat will be ve day we shall no longer be a civilized nation. Vat is ve day when we shall begin to lose our Empire and who knows? We might even start losing our respect for ve crown. So go on, Harry. Go and secure what is yours by right. But not, I would ask you, until I have had time to speak wiffe gel’s muvver on my return to London. Once I have done vis, I will give you leave.’

  Seeing the relief flood her son’s previously bewildered face Daisy lifted one of his pale white hands and kissed the fingertips. Then patting him once on the cheek she rose and left him. As soon as she had gone, Harry Lanford rang for a decanter of brandy, and once he had drunk the liberal measure served to him by a footman, armed with the decanter he too went in search of somebody. Harry Lanford wanted to speak privately with the Honourable Amelia Jay with whom he hoped he still had an assignation later that night after those who were staying at Sunning Lodge had retired to bed, a guest list which included both Harry and the Honourable Mrs Jay. He was particularly anxious to make sure their tryst was not to be broken because the Honourable Mrs Jay had a perfectly sensational trick she performed with ice.

  * * *

  For one moment he disturbed Emily and Lady Devenish in the small withdrawing room whither they had retired only a few moments earlier having gone at Lady Devenish’s invitation in search of somewhere where they might converse in private. After muttering a half-hearted apology for his intrusion Harry Lanford left Emily and her companion alone, closing the door behind him.

  ‘I know one should not really make remarks, Emily my dear,’ Lady Devenish said once they were alone, ‘but the Lanford boy really is a most unfortunate creation. For the life of me, and I am not alone in this, I cannot see one redeeming feature in him. However, I did not ask for some moments of your time to pass judgement on that poor soul but to ask if I may speak to you frankly on something which directly concerns you, my dear.’

  ‘I’m only too happy to listen to you, Lady Devenish, because during the time we have known each
other I like to think we have become good friends,’ Emily replied.

  ‘So do I, Emily dear, and so we have. Although you might not feel quite so warmly towards me by the time I have finished. You might think the very opposite in fact, but it is because I have grown so very fond of you that I feel I must speak, because I would hate to see your future happiness put in jeopardy which I am very much afraid it will be if you intend to accept Captain Pilkington’s proposal.’

  Emily turned even more towards her companion on the sofa which they were sharing to look at her with a mixture of interest tempered with confusion. ‘You are not saying, are you, Lady Devenish, that you know something to Captain Pilkington’s disadvantage?’ she asked. ‘For if you do, be sure to tell me. I won’t mind in the least – in fact I am certain I shall be in your debt entirely, so if you feel there is something I should know about Captain Pilkington please tell me. In return let me assure you that I shall not be hurt by anything you have to say, only interested, because to be perfectly honest with you, Lady Devenish, my heart is not really at all involved.’

  ‘It isn’t?’ Lady Devenish looked both surprised and relieved since she had honestly thought that the handsome Hussar had swept Emily off her feet. Had he done so it would have been perfectly understandable because she knew as everyone did of the captain’s expected fortune, as indeed she knew of the present straitened circumstances of the Persses. ‘But even if as you say your heart is not involved, my dear, it has to be said that a match with Captain Pilkington would not exactly be disadvantageous.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely!’ Emily laughed as if the whole thing was one massive lark. ‘If you must know, which I suspect you do already, Lady Devenish, since everyone in Society knows everything about everybody, and what they don’t know they invent – so if you must know I am of course expected to return home well provided for as far as a husband goes, and if I don’t get myself well provided for then I might as well not return home at all! So yes of course it would be to my family’s great advantage, but I am prepared to accept his proposal because I suppose Captain Pilkington is by far and away the very best of a pretty mediocre bunch.’

  ‘This would be perfectly proper if the matter was as straightforward as you suppose, my dear. After all there are very few marriages in Society which are not in some way arranged or approved, which are not in one way or another advantageous to one party or another, particularly marriages which are the consequence of engagements made before the end of the Season. But one feels that any such advantages should be confined to the two people who are to be married and should not include any third party.’

  ‘There is someone else who would benefit by my marrying Captain Pilkington, Lady Devenish?’

  ‘Alas, there is, my dear, and sadly I feel I should inform you since I have it on very good authority. Unimpeachable authority in fact.’

  ‘Might I wonder whose?’

  Lady Devenish smiled wryly. ‘My maid, Emily. As always the freshest and most accurate information is to be gleaned from one’s personal maid. It was Mary who told me about Captain Pilkington and she got the information first hand from Jenkins, Lady Evesham’s maid. I cannot imagine how, but there you are. Jenkins is apparently usually tight-lipped about matters concerning her employer, but I gather she was nursing some small grievance against Lady Evesham concerning a gift she had given her last Christmas. Please do not ask me what, for I know nothing more.’

  ‘But what of Captain Pilkington?’ Emily wondered. ‘What do you know of him?’

  ‘It is not so much what I know of him, Emily my dear, but what I know of your patron Lady Evesham. Apparently her intention is and always has been to find a suitable wife for the captain of whom she is herself greatly enamoured, and much as I know you will be most anxious to ask me questions as to the logic of this and more of what I have to say I would ask you to preserve your soul in patience until I have finished, when most of this story will be self-explanatory. You are naturally wondering why if Lady Evesham is herself enamoured of Captain Pilkington she should be anxious to marry him off rather than to enter a relationship with him as she has indeed with so many men before him, but the answer to this is very simple. Lord Evesham has expressly forbidden her to enjoy an illicit relationship with any unmarried men and has made his wife sign a contract to this effect. As you know he is an old man, and no longer active as a husband, but none the less he loves his wife to distraction and fears that if she entered a relationship with an unmarried man he would lose her. Thus she planned to have the captain marry you, once she had observed in Ireland how taken he was with you, so that should he bore of you – something which I myself knowing you as well as I do doubt with all my heart – but none the less the theory ran that if and when he bored of you Daisy Evesham would be there to – how shall I put it? To entertain your husband without endangering the security of her own marriage. After all, at her age and without her husband’s wealth it would not be very long before Lady Evesham’s reputation became purely academic.’

  Emily thought for a while. ‘But Captain Pilkington professes a serious love for me,’ she said. ‘He says if I do not marry him there will be no point to living.’

  ‘All smitten young men may say such things, my dear,’ Lady Devenish replied. ‘But in my experience men only find life unbearable when losing a partner of some standing. I feel sure that however suicidal Captain Pilkington might feel tonight were you to refuse him, by tomorrow he will already have begun his recovery.’

  ‘Do you think such a thing is true, Lady Devenish?’

  ‘I have no reason to suppose otherwise, Emily dear. This is Society. This is the sort of thing which happens tout le temps.’

  ‘Even so, were I to marry Captain Pilkington there is no saying that Lady Evesham’s plan would succeed.’

  ‘I agree. As I have said, I doubt whether any man in his right mind would grow bored with you, at least not for some considerable time, my dear. But you must look at it this way. It would be bad enough to have Daisy Evesham as your mother-in-law, God forbid. But would anyone really choose to have her as a rival? You would have no peace and if she failed in her purpose she would do her very best to ruin your happiness, make no mistake about that. Remember too that, knowing what you do, every time your husband left you you might well begin to wonder where exactly he had gone and with whom exactly he was spending his time. So if you do not truly love Captain Pilkington then my advice to you both as a woman and as a friend would be to refuse his proposal. If it is a rich husband you need, a gel such as you will experience no difficulty whatsoever in catching one. One moreover untrammelled by any schemes of Daisy Evesham.’

  ‘You are entirely right, Lady Devenish,’ Emily said after further thought. ‘I shall of course refuse Captain Pilkington’s proposal.’

  ‘I am most relieved to hear it, Emily,’ Lady Devenish replied. ‘It can only be for the good.’

  ‘In more ways than one,’ Emily replied. ‘You see, now I am quite determined as far as matrimony goes only to follow my heart.’

  * * *

  When Daisy Evesham learned that Emily had turned down Captain Pilkington’s proposal of marriage she at once set herself to finding her charge, not in the hope of making Emily change her mind but of telling her what the future would now hold for her. Now the dance itself was over Emily had been hoping she might be able to make her way up to her bedroom unobserved and be in bed asleep by the time her patron heard the news. She even nursed the faint hope that it might not break until the following day but such was not her luck. Knowing not only that her beloved captain was intending to ascertain the answer to his question but also precisely when, Daisy was on the sidelines waiting for an immediate report on the proceedings. When she heard Emily had said no, she pursued her charge up the stairs and catching Emily halfway down the main corridor dragged her by the arm into the bedroom to which Emily had been allocated.

  ‘You may still change your mind, you little fool,’ Daisy hissed, having locked both of them in. ‘Ca
ptain Pilkington is a gentleman and he will understand if you explain it was simply one last moment of doubt. Ladies are allowed vat, don’t you know. A lady is allowed to change her mind as often as she changes her linen.’

  ‘I do not wish to change my mind, Lady Evesham,’ Emily said with relish. ‘I have good reason not to.’

  ‘Very well,’ Daisy said, thinking the time had come for some unveiled threats. ‘Ven I shall see you are disgraced. How will you like vat, you little vixen?’

  ‘You can’t disgrace me. I haven’t done anything of which I might be ashamed. Not in the slightest.’

  Daisy waited, tapping one prettily shod little foot impatiently under her skirts. ‘I shall give you one last chance,’ she said. ‘If you do not reconsider, ven I assure you that you will live to regret it.’

  ‘No, Lady Evesham,’ Emily replied bravely, even though fearing the worst. ‘I shall not reconsider. I shall not marry your Captain Pilkington.’

  ‘My Captain Pilkington? What in ve devil’s name are you talking about, you silly girl? Why should you refer to Captain Pilkington as my Captain Pilkington?’

  ‘Why? Because that is what I understand you would like him to be, that is why.’ Emily returned Daisy’s sudden hate-filled stare as steadily as she could, waiting for the explosion she thought was inevitable. But none was forthcoming, because when Daisy was truly angry she never resorted to noise or violence. Instead she employed a measured calm which of course was altogether much more alarming.