by M. M. Kaye
She inclined her head in a slight but gracious nod of dismissal and turned her attention to the elderly companion.
There was no sign of the young lady of the portrait at dinner that night, and Alex concluded that she must be dining with her parents. He found himself seated between a portly clergyman, and a Lady Wycombe who, having demanded an explanation of his presence at Ware, remarked: ‘For one can see that you are not one of the family.’
‘How?’ inquired Alex, interested.
‘The family favours fair hair. Have you not noticed? Yours is dark. And you are burnt so exceedingly brown. India, I presume?’
Alex introduced himself and explained his presence in the house. He did not go into the details of his errand, merely allowing it to be inferred that he had had business to transact with the late Earl.
‘Yes, of course. He was a shareholder, was he not? Of the East India Company, I mean. A very interesting country, India, I feel sure. But too hot. You were looking for someone, were you not? Who did you expect to see here?’
‘No one, I assure you,’ said Alex with a smile. ‘But there was a young lady sitting opposite me at luncheon. I noticed that she is not here tonight.’
‘Ah, you must mean Sybella,’ said Lady Wycombe. ‘She is having a light supper in her room. Do not tell me that you too have fallen a victim to her charms! If so I must hasten to warn you that you stand no chance; no chance at all. When Bella marries it will be to the heir of a great name or a great fortune. Probably both.’
‘I have met Lady Ware,’ said Alex gravely.
His companion laughed. ‘Oh, I was not referring to Julia. Naturally she thinks that no one under a Prince of the Blood is good enough for her dazzling daughter, but she could be brought to consent to anything that her child demanded. No, it is Sybella herself who sets the mark high. And she will hit it, of that I have no doubt. That is, if she can rid herself of her cousin. Winter may yet spoil her aim. It is a way she has.’
‘Winter. That is a curious name. Does it derive from the Spanish? It sounds a trifle bleak.’
‘You have not met her yet?’
‘No. What is she like?’
Lady Wycombe laughed on rather an odd note.
‘No woman can describe her to you without injustice. But I am sorry for Julia - and Sybella. Sybella is a spoilt, selfish chit who will grow up into a spoilt, selfish woman. Nevertheless one cannot help feeling for her. Do you see that young man over there? On the far side of that candelabrum; sitting between old Lady Parbury and Camilla Grantham - the girl with the red hair. That is Amberley’s heir, and the greatest parti in Europe. He is also Sybella’s first cousin, though that will not stop them. There is only one thing that may stand in the way of a satisfactory conclusion, but now that Henry is dead I am quite sure that suitable steps will be taken. Yes, they will certainly get rid of Winter.’
Alex said: ‘I am sorry to appear so dull-witted, but you forget that I am a stranger here. I have never met any of these people before, and I must confess that I have not the least idea what you are talking about.’
‘And why should you, indeed?’ said Lady Wycombe.
‘Enlighten me, please.’
‘You will find it very tedious stuff. What is it you wish to know?’
‘About the Condesa with the chilly name. And Lady Sybella. What was it that she could do nothing about while Henry - the late Earl I collect? - was alive, and why will she get rid of this Winter now that he is dead? You perceive that you have aroused my curiosity.’
‘Wait until you know them better, and then you will see for yourself.’
Lady Wycombe had clearly lost interest in the subject. She turned her shoulder upon him, and Captain Randall found himself engaged to listen to a long monologue from his right-hand neighbour, a portly ornament of the church, anent the disgraceful advance of the railroads, which were spreading a pernicious network all over the country to the great detriment of the natural scene and a decline in the use of that noble animal, the horse.
There had been no gathering of the assembled guests at the conclusion of the meal, for the ladies withdrew to their several rooms immediately upon leaving the table. After an unusually brief interval with the port the gentlemen followed their example, and Captain Randall, making his way back to his room, took a wrong turning and so came upon a curious scene.
He found himself at the entrance of a long, unlighted gallery hung with tapestries and family portraits, at the far end of which, blackly silhouetted against a lighted hall beyond, stood two closely embraced figures. He was preparing to retreat hastily when it was borne in upon him that what he was witnessing was not a love scene, for the woman at the far end of the gallery was being held against her will. Her captor held her with her arms closely pinioned to her sides, and so hard against him that she could move nothing but her head as she strove frantically to avoid his avid kisses. She did not cry out, but struggled silently, and in the stillness of the quiet gallery Alex could hear her short, panting breaths. He started forward at a run.
The floor of the gallery was thickly carpeted and the two at the far end of it too engrossed in their struggle to be aware of his approach.
‘Just a moment,’ said Alex crisply. He caught the gentleman’s shoulder in an ungentle grip and jerked him round, and the lady, freed, drew back with a gasp of relief and leant panting against the wall, her hands at her throat. The wide black skirts of her crinoline merged with the shadows of the gallery, and only her face and her small hands made white blurs in the dim light.
Alex turned his attention to the gentleman, but before he could speak, yet another figure appeared upon the scene; someone who must have started to run across the wide hall towards the struggling figures at almost the same instant that Alex had started towards them from the far end of the gallery, but who, hampered by a trailing cashmere shawl, had arrived there a close second.
‘Edmund!’ The word was a gasp of fury.
Captain Randall released his captive who took a hurried step backward, bringing his face into the subdued light of the hall. It was the young gentleman whom Lady Wycombe had referred to as the most eligible parti in Europe.
The new arrival stared up at him for a moment, her breath coming short. Then suddenly, swiftly, she brushed past him, ignoring Captain Randall as though she were unaware of his presence, and confronted the panting figure in the shadows.
‘You!’ The single syllable was scarcely more than a breath of rage in the silence. It was followed by another sound, equally shocking in its unexpectedness: the crisp, sharp sound of a slap delivered with the full force of an open palm.
The woman in the shadows threw up an arm as though to protect herself from further attack, and then picking up her wide skirts, whirled about and ran down the length of the dark gallery, the heavy silk of her dress rustling in the silence like a rush of wind through dead leaves. In the same instant the eligible Edmund turned on his heel and disappeared with startling suddenness through a door that led out of the circular hall a few paces from the entrance to the gallery, and Captain Randall was left alone with the lady in the cashmere shawl.
She turned slowly, and apparently for the first time became aware of the presence of a stranger, for he heard her startled gasp. The warm light from the hall fell full on the white face and tumbled blonde curls of the girl of the dining-room and the Winterhalter portrait. The Lady Sybella Grantham. The next moment she had swept past him and run lightly across the hall to vanish down a dimly lit corridor beyond.
The whole curious incident had occupied less than two minutes of time, and Captain Randall, unexpectedly involved in the brief drama and left in sole possession of the scene, retraced his steps, and coming upon a hurrying flunkey was redirected to his own part of the house.
The morning of the funeral dawned cold and windy. Hurrying ranks of clouds streamed endlessly overhead against a lowering background of grey skies that failed to show a glimpse of blue, and patches of discoloured snow still lay about unmelt
ed among the roots of the oaks and the beech trees in the park.
The body of the late Earl had been laid to rest in the ancestral mausoleum attached to a chapel in the grounds of the castle, and when the service was over Captain Randall found himself standing next to his neighbour of the previous evening, Lady Wycombe.
‘Let us wait in the porch until the crowd thins,’ said Lady Wycombe. ‘At least it is out of the wind. It will take some time to get the carriages away, and I do not intend to walk.’
The crowd about the mausoleum was thinning rapidly, for the keen wind did not encourage loitering. Those who had come or were returning on foot had already set off at a brisk pace, and the carriages that waited to one side of the yew-lined avenue were being filled and driven away.
A lone woman was standing apart by the nearest yew tree, using the thick trunk as a shelter against the wind and evidently waiting, as were Alex and Lady Wycombe, until the major portion of the crowd had left the avenue. Something about her, something vaguely familiar, attracted Captain Randall’s attention. Despite the heavy veil that obscured her features he had the impression that he knew her or had seen her before. Yet it was not the Lady Sybella; of that he was certain. This woman was not so tall and her hair was dark, not fair, for in the cold light of the windy morning even a heavy black mourning veil could not have entirely disguised the pale gold glint of Lady Sybella’s curls.
She stood quite still; so still that Captain Randall suddenly realized where it was that he had seen her before. It was the woman who had entered the guardroom yesterday and had stood in that same rigid attitude before the old Earl’s coffin.
He watched her idly, wondering how it was that such complete immobility could yet manage to convey such a vivid and unmistakable impression of grief. And as he watched, a freakish gust of wind, sweeping about the trunk of the aged yew tree, snatched at the long black veil and whipped it out and above her head, revealing a young, unguarded face.
It was a small face, the colour of warm ivory. Wide at the brow and pointed at the chin, with enormous dark eyes under delicate black brows that curved like a swallow’s wings. The thick waves of hair that sprang from a deep widow’s peak on her forehead held the blue, burnished gleam of a raven’s plumage and made the mourning hue of bonnet and gown appear dull and rusty by comparison; and though her mouth was too wide and too full to suit the accepted standards of beauty in that age, it was a mouth, all the same, to set a man’s pulses beating.
The girl reached up an arm to recapture her veil, and as she did so she turned her head more fully towards the two in the porch. Upon her left cheek, and sharply visible against the ivory skin, was an irregular blotch that might have been a birthmark - or the mark left by a vicious blow given with an open hand.
Alex’s eyes narrowed. So this was the girl who had been in the gallery last night and whom he had rescued from the unwelcome attentions of the Honourable Edmund Rathley. It was evident, too, that the white hand of Lady Sybella, which Herr Winterhalter had depicted as gracefully holding a rose, was possessed of surprising strength.
‘Who is that?’ inquired Captain Randall of his companion. ‘The young lady over there by the yew tree?’
Lady Wycombe turned. ‘That? We were discussing her last night - the Condesa de los Aguilares. That is Winter.’
If Alex was surprised, it was because he did not know that Mr Barton was not the only person whose appearance had altered drastically during the past few years. Winter too had changed.
In the months following Zobeida’s death she had grown paler and thinner and more silent than ever. Her skin appeared to be stretched too tightly over the fine bones of her skull, making her mouth seem even wider than its wont and her eyes far too large for her small sallow face.
Her Spanish blood might have been expected to lead to an earlier maturity than is found in women of purely northern and Anglo-Saxon descent, but the shock and sorrow of Zobeida’s death had affected her both physically and mentally, and although Sybella at fifteen had the appearance of a petted and poised young woman, Winter, her junior by less than three months, seemed only a skinny child with several years in the schoolroom still ahead of her.
But even the deepest sorrows outwear their first bitterness, and although the cruel void left by Zobeida’s death remained unfilled, the natural health and resilience of youth eventually reasserted itself and a change came over her. Almost overnight - or so it seemed - Sabrina’s daughter grew from a plain child into a young woman of strange and disturbing beauty. It was a beauty that many (and they were all women) could neither appreciate nor understand, for England was in the throes of a sentimental age: an era where the ideal of feminine beauty consisted of a smoothly oval face of a stereotyped pink and whiteness, a small rosebud mouth, limpid eyes - preferably blue - and long sleek curls à la Stuart caressing the cheeks and dressed so as to accentuate the oval of the face, or at least to give that effect to those unlucky enough not to possess the fashionable features.
Sybella was the very embodiment of the Victorian ideal of beauty. But Winter possessed none of these attributes, and it was therefore not altogether surprising that to the majority of feminine beholders she should still appear entirely unremarkable, if not actually plain. But it was quite otherwise with their men. By the time she reached her sixteenth birthday, masculine heads began to turn when she passed by, and masculine eyes followed her whenever she entered a room.
The scrawny angular child had grown into a slender girl whose slim seductive shape even the overblown hoops of the newly-fashionable crinolines could not entirely disguise. Her thin little face had filled out, setting her features in proportion at last, and the wide mouth was seen to be curved with beauty and of a rich and lovely redness. The sallow skin had warmed to ivory and the sweet curve of her young breasts owed nothing to the ruffles and padding so often resorted to by Victorian maidens. Winter’s expressive dark eyes tilted slightly upwards at the outer corners, which women pronounced unbecoming and men found irresistible. But even the sternest of feminine critics were obliged to allow that her long slender neck and the thick sweep of her silky black lashes were both exceptional beauties.
The girl appeared to have acquired, too, the graceful carriage that is possessed by so many Spanish women. Perhaps, like her colouring, it was a legacy from Marcos; and possibly she had always possessed it, only no one had troubled to notice it until now.
It was not until the summer of 1855, when Winter was sixteen, that Lady Glynde awoke to the fact that the ugly Anglo-Spanish duckling had turned into a swan. Julia had given a young people’s party for Sybella: a summer dance (it was not to be termed a ball, because Sybella would not make her official debut until the following spring, but was a ball in all but name). Ware was filled with young ladies and gentlemen of quality and wealth, and the guests had been most carefully chosen. The gentlemen were not all so young, and those young ladies who had been invited had been the subject of much thought, for Julia was nothing if not thorough and none was asked who could rival Sybella in looks - though she was far too astute to invite only the plain.
For some years past Julia had kept a secret list locked away in a drawer of her escritoire. It bore the names of those few eligible men who in her opinion would be acceptable as suitors for the hand of her peerless Sybella; young men who had inherited or would inherit both titles and riches. There were other names on a second list. Their owners were none of them possessed of sufficiently spectacular wealth or title to make them eligible as a husband for Julia’s daughter, but it did no girl any harm to be surrounded by admirers, and provided that they were kept at a suitable distance by a vigilant mama, they enhanced a girl’s value and desirability in the eyes of the more favoured few.
During the past year several names had been removed from these lists, their owners having contracted alliances with other young ladies who had already made their debuts. The party for Sybella might therefore with more truth have been termed a Private View, for whatever glamour might atte
nd her future debut, this comparatively small assembly constituted her real introduction to the social world in which her mother intended that she should be queen. And certainly Julia had every reason to feel proud of her child as Sybella stood before the long pier-glass in her mother’s bed-chamber, complacently admiring her enchanting reflection.
Sybella’s white satin bodice, tiny waist and soft, sloping, flower-wreathed shoulders rose out of a wide crinolined ball-gown of white gros de Naples with an overskirt of satin-striped gauze trimmed with blonde and looped up at intervals with bouquets of white primroses, heath and lily-of-the-valley. Her golden curls were adorned by a wreath of the same flowers, and in deference to her youth she wore only a simple necklace and bracelet of seed pearls.
Winter’s dress had received considerably less attention. It had in fact, been selected by the housekeeper, Mrs Flecker, who had been told by Lady Julia to see that Miss Winter had a suitable gown: it would have to be white, and as simple as possible, since Miss Winter was younger than Lady Sybella and therefore must consider herself fortunate in being permitted to attend at all.
Mrs Flecker procured a sufficient quantity of white Indian muslin and the services of an elderly dressmaker from the market town of Wareburn, and the result was a gown that met with Lady Glynde’s approval. But the effect of the same garment when worn by Winter was entirely unexpected. The blood of her grandmother, Anne Marie de Selincourt, may have had something to do with it, but the fact remained that the simple and unadorned muslin gown acquired from its wearer that look of rare distinction that many Frenchwomen and few Englishwomen can give to an otherwise unremarkable dress.
Winter’s wealth of blue-black hair had been drawn straight back and confined in a net of white silk, so that its shining weight tilted her little pointed chin as though with pride, and she wore no jewels - she was as yet unaware that she possessed any. But Mrs Flecker, tying the wide white taffeta sash about her slender waist and turning the girl about to see that she was ready to be sent downstairs, had reached out of the window to where the climbing roses nodded just below the sill, and breaking off a white rosebud had tucked it into the dark sweep of hair above one small ear.