A Bright Young Thing

by Brianne Moore

  “Freddie wouldn’t stop talking about what a tease you were, and said he thought you were trying to make someone jealous. They bundled him off, but word was already spreading about who it might be. There was something about a love letter you sent Mustard—really, Astra? Surely not!—and more than a few people said you’d hoped to be a duchess and now were settling for an earl and playing Jeremy Harris for a fool. Jeremy spoke up for you, good man. Said you and he were really only friends, but I don’t think it helped much. Especially not after Tommy Ruckle reappeared, tie askew, and said he’d just driven you home. His wife turned puce—absolutely puce!—and marched him right out of the room, and we didn’t see them again. I think we’re all glad not to be in his shoes tonight.

  “Oh, and thank you so very much for abandoning me with no way to get home. I had to persuade the Arnolds to take me, so I was smashed into that car with seven—no, eight!—of them, all laughing and talking about how they couldn’t wait for Booboo Woolten’s next party because it was to have a crime and criminals theme, and they have the brilliant idea of dressing up as a chain gang. The only good news I can give you is that everyone kept the whispers to a dull roar so Belinda didn’t overhear, so her day wasn’t really spoiled. You may be able to win her back yet.”

  But everyone else? That might be another matter. Already, an old school friend had rescinded her invitation for me to join her family at Wimbledon. And Bellephonica had evidently overheard Toby’s tirade after the wedding and sent word to the servants that we were to be on the first train back to London in the morning. Alice saw us off, apologizing the entire time for her sister’s lack of hospitality. At the station, fellow wedding guests had steered well clear. They’d bunched and gossiped, looking me up and down. “So that’s what a certain kind of woman looks like …”

  So as I walked through the front door of Aunt El’s and began divesting myself of hat and gloves, I think I could be forgiven for feeling more than a little low.

  “Astra Lillian Davies!”

  Toby and I both jumped and looked up at the staircase. The sight of Aunt El standing there, clenching her cross, made my heart skip several beats. She was staring at me in such white-hot rage I was amazed my skin didn’t melt.

  She turned and pointed one trembling finger up the stairs. “Up! Now!”

  I slowly ascended, followed by Toby. Aunt El brought up the rear, herding us into a dressing room she’d transformed into a combination study and chapel. On one side was a heavy desk and on the other, a prie-dieu facing a crucifix on the wall. She slammed the door shut behind her and went to stand in front of the prie-dieu.

  “You have brought shame into my house!” she accused, pointing to me, shaking. “Shame! After I spent more than twenty years purifying it!”

  “Mother, what on earth are you talking about?” Toby asked, backing away from her as if he thought (with good reason) that she’d gone mad.

  “I have had a very upsetting telephone call from Lady Crayle this morning,” she said. “She told me all about your … activities at Lord Hampton’s wedding. Carrying on with Freddie Ponsonby-Lewis! And making advances toward the groom!”

  “It wasn’t like that at all!” I insisted, willing myself to find the energy to put up some defense. But every bit of me felt lethargic, and my brain seemed to be full of sawdust. Coherent thoughts were having a hard time swimming through the muck and being found. “I never wrote a note to Lord Hampton, and the matter with Freddie was about business—just business,” I gabbled. “He misunderstood.”

  “You can’t believe what Lady Crayle says anyway,” Toby added. “She’s being fed information by Lady Millicent, and you know what she’s like.”

  “Did you not wear a scarlet gown to the wedding ball?” Aunt El demanded. “Were you not seen brazenly cavorting with Mr. Ponsonby-Lewis in a hallway by not one, but two people? Were you not party to a scene that ruined the entire wedding?”

  “It was all a misunderstanding,” I repeated. I heard a loud, high-pitched buzzing and felt sick. What little I’d eaten that day began to churn. I groped for something to steady myself with and found the edge of the desk.

  “She didn’t ruin the wedding,” Toby argued. “It was a bit of excitement. A wedding without excitement’s like roast beef without mustard: acceptable, but a bit dull.”

  “Enough, Tobias!” his mother barked.

  “Don’t be angry with Toby!” I cried. “It’s not his fault Freddie’s an idiot.”

  “Freddie’s the idiot?” Elinor’s face was incredulous. “You are the one making a spectacle of yourself. Your position is precarious, Astra! And you’ve made everything worse! What man will have you now?”

  “I daresay Lord Dunreaven will have her,” said Toby.

  His mother rounded on him. “Then you are the fool, Tobias. Men like him don’t give their titles to girls who seem like easy conquests.” She turned back to me. “You have brought nothing but trouble ever since you came through my door. You and your probing and utter lack of respect for decency! I have tried to be patient with you, tried to tell myself that you were young and simply needed a firm hand to guide you, but you clearly don’t care at all about me or Toby or our good name or your own. I’m not sure—not at all sure—I can continue to have you here, Astra. No, I really don’t think I can.”

  The nausea built and rushed upward. Was she throwing me out? Where would I go? Would any friend take me in, now that I existed under a cloud of scandal? If I had to pay for a room somewhere and pay Rosedale’s fees, I’d never be able to save up enough money to go back to Hensley. And if Vandemark collapsed, I might not even be able to afford the room and the fees.

  Toby was remonstrating with his mother, saying something about Christian charity, but I wasn’t listening. I had reached a crisis, stomach burning and revolting. I stumbled to the nearest vessel—some sort of vase near the door—and vomited into it.

  * * *

  Influenza. Apparently Bellephonica was more contagious than her doctor realized. I spent nearly a week shivering even as I burned, unable to keep anything down. Asleep, I suffered from fever dreams. I dreamt I saw my parents standing in the doorway of Hensley, waving and smiling, even as the house began to shake and writhe around them. I tried to call out, to run to them, but I was stuck in every way. And Aunt El appeared beside me, saying, “Best not to interfere.”

  I woke to someone wiping my forehead with something shockingly cool and smelling vaguely of lavender. I thought it was my mother but gradually realized it was Reilly holding the cloth. I cried, fell asleep again, and the fever finally broke.

  I slept until noon the next day and came around weak and pale. My eyes flickered open, and the first thing I saw was the picture Raymond had painted for my birthday. The joyous smears of color, made in generosity for someone he didn’t even know, coaxed a smile from me and made me feel for the first time in a while that there was some brightness in the world.

  “Gifts for the invalid!” Toby announced, coming to my room two days later, carrying a small stack of magazines.

  I was still in bed, but sitting up, and Reilly had fixed my hair and draped me in a silk and lace bed jacket, so I felt a little more human. A tabletop radio tuned to Radio Normandie was playing Marion Harris. Dandy was curled up next to me on one of the few spots not covered by old photographs and piles of papers.

  Toby processed in, followed by Reilly carrying the mail and a tiny, potted rose plant. Behind her was Jeffries with a massive hamper from Fortnum and Mason.

  “You took your time,” I chided, grinning nonetheless at the sight of Toby.

  “Forgive me, please, for not wanting to join you in your misery.”

  “You are forgiven. I didn’t want to be in my place either.”

  “Ahh, poor lamb,” Toby sympathized. “Just over there, please, Jeffries.”

  Jeffries set down the hamper and made himself scarce. Reilly handed me the mail. Judging from the addresses, I guessed they were more rescinded invitations.


  “Have the rumors not died down?” I asked Toby, reluctantly slicing one open.

  “Oh, you know how these things are,” he answered vaguely, wandering over to the window and peeking out. “Oh, the milk delivery is very late this morning.”

  I noticed Reilly giving him a look. “Spill, Reilly, if you please,” I prompted.

  “I only know what the other servants say, miss, but”—she took a deep breath—“It’s very bad. With you having so suddenly taken ill after what happened, it only fed things. Some think you got into trouble and had to have … a procedure.”

  “Others have been more creative,” Toby piped up. “They think your note to Freddie was about drugs and say you’re hopelessly addicted to cocaine. But that’s all right—it’s quite fashionable now. They could have said opium, and who does opium anymore?”

  “You’re all brightness, Toby,” I remarked drily. “What does your mother think?”

  “She’s taken herself off to Eastbourne to steady her nerves. But cheer up, it’ll blow over soon enough,” Toby said, making room on the bed and sitting down.

  “Probably not soon enough. Thank you, Reilly.”

  She set the plant she was holding on my bedside table and departed.

  “I’ll work on Mother,” Toby offered as I went through the mail. Just as I thought, all notes informing me, in clipped tones, that my presence would not be required at the given sporting event or party or country house weekend. What was I going to do all summer? Sit in stinking, boiling London, waiting for the ax to fall and wondering what my maid was up to? And never mind trying to make inroads into business; I doubted anyone worth anything would even be in the same room with me now. If they were willing, it would be for all the wrong reasons. I sighed.

  “Millicent has done her work well this time,” Toby noted. “Though I don’t see why she went to the trouble of forging a letter when she had Mustard’s note.”

  “Who knows why she does anything?” I snapped, shoving the mail to one side and crossing my arms. “Maybe she wanted to keep some control over the poor man.”

  Toby noticed my glum expression and went to fetch the hamper. “Do smile, old girl, you have some friends still.” He tugged the hamper a little closer and flipped it open. Inside was a mass of rich foods I could hardly bear to look at. “From Joyce. She telephoned twice to see how you were feeling and asked me to tell you you’re still welcome at Wotting Park this summer, if you find yourself at loose ends.”

  Dear, dear Joyce!

  “I suppose at times like this you really do discover who your true friends are,” I remarked, finding and unfolding a little note that had come with the rose plant.

  Dear Astra,

  Toby says you haven’t been well, so I thought I’d send a little token to cheer you up. Joyce says she still hopes to have you at Wotting Park. I hope you take her up on that, because I did promise you a terrible summer, and I’m a man of my word!

  Your friend, in sickness and in health, Jeremy

  “That’s very sweet,” I murmured.

  “He’s been championing you,” said Toby. “A few chaps were having a whisper about you at the club, but he told them it was all nonsense because he’d never known you to be anything other than perfectly respectable.”

  “That’s nice of him.”

  “More than just nice, old girl,” said Toby. “You know that people are saying you’ve taken him in.”

  “Well, he’s a man; men can come through gossip unscathed,” I grumbled. “And a titled man—well! He can commit murder and still dine with a duke the next day.”

  Toby was quiet for a little while, then gestured to the strewn bed and commented, “Seems you’re keeping yourself distracted. What’s all this?”

  “I’ll tell you, but could you please turn up the radio first?”

  He looked confused but obeyed. “I had no idea you were so fond of ‘Goodnight Sweetheart,’” he commented.

  “I’m not. I just don’t want anyone listening in.”

  “Listening in? Are you serious? Is this fever delusion talking?”

  “No,” I whispered as he resumed his seat on the bed. “It’s just a precaution. I thought I might use this time trapped in bed to learn more about Mr. Porter.”

  “Oh? Still hoping to talk him round?”

  “No. That seems unlikely now. But the man certainly knows how to make money, and they do say you should learn from the best. I’m studying his methods.”

  “And what do they tell you?”

  “That you need money to begin with.”

  “No rags-to-riches story for him?”

  “Not really. His father did well in dry goods and left a tidy sum when he died. Porter bought some land, and not long after, someone wanted it to build tenements on. Porter leased it to the builder, who put up his tenements and paid rent. The land’s value went up, and Porter sold for a tidy profit. And he moved into other things and now …”

  “And now he has his finger in every pie,” Toby finished.

  “So it seems. And any pie he so much as sniffs becomes valuable.”

  “Well, best of luck making Vandemark Rubber delectable again, darling. And what’s all this?” Toby picked up one of the tarnished christening cups I’d found in my mother’s box of mementoes. “Not Porter’s, I take it?”

  “Of course not.” I reached out and took it back. “It was in one of Mother’s boxes. I’ve been going back through them.” I rotated the cup in my hands.

  “Reminiscing?”

  “Something like that. There was something Alice said—it made me realize that my mother doesn’t seem to have anything of Raymond’s, which is odd. She obviously cared for him, and she kept everything. So why doesn’t she have any of his bonnets or rattles?”

  Toby scrunched his face sympathetically. “Well, if she did have him before she was married, perhaps your father didn’t want any reminders around the house.”

  “I don’t think so.” I struggled to imagine my father forbidding my mother anything, let alone something so important. “He didn’t keep her from seeing Raymond regularly, or supporting him, which she did with Father’s money. And he took out that life insurance policy with Raymond as a beneficiary. Even if Mother had been behind that, surely it suggests he didn’t bear Raymond any ill will?”

  “What explanation could there be? That his things were lost or hidden away?”

  “Or given to someone else,” I murmured, handing him back the christening cup. I had noticed, just that morning, that each cup had an initial engraved on it. Nearly unreadable, thanks to the tarnish, but I could just make out the L, E, and M that graced each one in turn. L for Lillian, E for Elinor, and M.

  “Who’s M?” Toby wondered, examining the cup.

  “Who indeed?” I reached into the box and retrieved the crumbling posy with its initialed card: M.E.C. “M. E. Carlyle, do you think? And there’s this too.” I retrieved one of the photo albums and opened it to a page with a large photograph of my mother, dressed for her court presentation. Alongside her was another woman, also in court dress. She was willowy and dark-haired, like Mother, but had light eyes. I pointed to the photograph. “Does anyone here look familiar to you?”

  Toby briefly studied the photograph. “Your mother, of course. But who’s this, then?” He indicated the other woman.

  “I believe,” I said quietly, “that’s our aunt, M. Carlyle.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  By late June, the heat and stench made London intolerable, and those who could fled to country piles or Continental bolt-holes. Even Toby went, joining his mother in Eastbourne, which was just civilized enough to suit him. Grateful for the escape, I boarded a train to Wotting Park with Reilly and Dandy. The rumors and general air of disapproval (one dowager actually hissed when she saw me at Selfridge’s) were making me miserable, and I hoped that being out of the city and near the coast would help.

  Unlike many country houses that have remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years, Wotting
Park has a long tradition of being pulled down and rebuilt. The current house, the sixth to stand on the site, was built by David’s father just after he came into the title. But Baron and Baroness Merseley had only lived in the house for a year or two before they both departed forever—and separately. She scandalously ran off with a lover (a Spanish sailor, some said), and he retreated to the casinos of Monte Carlo, where he remains to this day. Hopefully Joyce and David would have better luck once, as Joyce said, they managed to rub off each other’s sharper edges.

  Dandy spent the train ride and drive from the station curled up in my lap, snoring gently. As the car drew up to the house, he suddenly animated, leapt up, and pressed his nose to the glass, his entire body wriggling with the force of his wag.

  David, who had come to collect me from the station, laughed. “He knows where he is!” he said, and braked at the front door just as Joyce came around the corner of the house. A garden trug loaded with irises was slung over one arm; a yapping herd of dogs tumbled over one another in her wake.

  “Astra!” She lifted her arm in a wave. I waved back, smiling, as I climbed into the sunlight. Dandy spilled out behind me and rushed to join his mother and sisters.

  “He’s coming along nicely,” Joyce observed, indicating Dandy.

  “He’s glad to be out of London for the summer,” I said as we went in. “We both are. Thank you for inviting me.” Her support through this disaster meant the world.

  “Do you really think I was prepared to face a summer alone with Laura? She’ll kill me. Cee was supposed to come but”—she cleared her throat awkwardly—“something came up. What do you think of what I’ve done in here?” She gestured to the hall, which had been stripped of the overly elaborate baroque furnishings and heavy floral carpets her mother-in-law preferred. Now, the parquet floor was permitted to shine, covered only by a zebra skin and a lion hide (“David shot both on our honeymoon and was so proud of himself,” Joyce explained) and an oval rug with a simple design of overlapping curlicues worked in black, silver, and buff. Two gently curving cream-colored sofas and a pair of matching armchairs were arranged around the oval rug. The Tiffany lamps had gone, replaced by a large pendant that looked like the Chrysler Building inverted, suspended from the ceiling.