‘Thank you, Elsie,’ Olivia smiled. ‘You’ve done it very well indeed.’
‘Don’t thank me, Miss Olivia, it was a privilege. Now, can I help you with your corset?’
‘You’re a darling, Elsie,’ Olivia said shyly. ‘To be frank about it, I’ve no idea how it goes on. I’ve never worn one in my life and I’m bound to get into an awful muddle with it.’
Elsie picked it up off the bed and studied it. ‘This is the new “wasp waist” corset,’ she said admiringly. ‘I seen them in Woman’s Weekly. It gives you a perfect hour-glass figure, so they say. Right, I think I knows how it goes on. We’ll do it together, Miss Olivia, don’t you worry,’ she comforted.
With the corset on and Olivia utterly convinced there was no room for an olive, let alone a four-course dinner, Elsie slipped the new midnight-blue brocade dress over her head and fastened it at the back.
Olivia smoothed down the skirt, which frothed out below her newly nipped-in waist, and gazed at her reflection in the mirror.
The hair, the corset and the dress had achieved a transformation. It was no longer a young girl who stared back at her from the mirror, it was a woman.
‘Ooh, Miss Olivia, you look so beautiful. That colour matches your eyes perfectly. You’ll be turning a few heads tonight and that’s for sure. Hope you get to sit next to Master Harry, his Lordship’s son; all us girls are in love with him,’ Elsie admitted. ‘He’s so handsome.’
‘Knowing my luck, I shan’t. I’ll almost certainly get the old Major with the paunch that I met downstairs during afternoon tea.’ Olivia smiled and raised her eyebrows and the two girls shared a moment of understanding that crossed their social barriers.
‘Well, for your sake, I hope not, Miss Olivia. Enjoy yourself.’
Olivia turned at the open door. ‘Thank you, Elsie, you’ve been awfully kind. I’ll report back later.’ She winked and left the room.
Olivia was not the only member of the household who was dreading dinner that night. The Honourable Harry Crawford had already decided that when he took over Wharton Park from his father, there would be no more shooting parties. The whole sensation of killing a defenceless, living thing made him sick to the stomach.
Struggling to put his own cufflinks in – his man had been sent to assist the elderly Major with dressing – Harry straightened his bow tie in the mirror. And wondered how many other human beings felt they had been born into the wrong life. In his, ‘duty’ was everything. And, although the many who served him at home and in his future regiment might look on with envy, Harry thought he would swap with any of them in an instant.
He knew no one was really interested in how he felt; his life had been mapped out for him long before he had even been conceived. He was a mere vessel of continuity, and the situation could not be altered.
At least the two years of hell at Sandhurst were over. He was on two weeks’ leave before joining the 5th Battalion Royal Norfolks – his father’s old regiment – for his first posting as an officer. Having attained the very highest rank, Lord Christopher Crawford was now working at Whitehall in an advisory capacity to the Government.
There were rumblings of war … the thought made Harry break out in a cold sweat. Chamberlain was doing his damndest and all were hoping for a peaceful resolution, but given that his father was privy to the actual facts, rather than the gossip on the streets, Harry knew this was unlikely to be the case. His father had said there would be war within the year and Harry believed him.
Harry was not a coward. He had no problem with the thought of giving his life for his country. However, the gung-ho attitude of his fellow officers, who were relishing the thought of giving the Krauts a jolly good thrashing – a thoughtless euphemism for death and destruction on a grand scale – was not an emotion he shared. He kept his pacifist views to himself – they didn’t go down awfully well in the Officers’ Mess. But often, he would lie awake in his narrow bed at night, wondering whether, if faced with a Kraut on the end of a long gun, he would actually be able to pull his trigger to save his own skin.
He knew there were plenty of others who thought like him. The problem was, they didn’t have a high-profile, high-ranking general as their father, or a history of two hundred and fifty years of family heroism behind them.
Harry had acknowledged a long time ago that his father’s genes had obviously given him a miss. He resembled his mother, Adrienne, far more in personality – gentle and artistic – but also in the way that he was prone to sudden, abrupt fits of depression, when the world turned black and he struggled to see the point of living. His mother called these moments her petit mal, and would retire to bed until she had shaken it off. As an officer in the Army, Harry did not have that option. His lack of prowess with all things military had remained undiscussed with his father. In fact, their conversation was limited to a cheery ‘Good morning’ or a ‘Day seems fine enough’ and an occasional ‘Get Sable to pour me a scotch, will you, old chap?’
His father could have been any one of the commanding officers he had dealt with at Sandhurst. His mother knew, of course, how Harry felt about his life and his future, but he understood she was powerless to help. So they did not discuss it.
Yet, at least she had managed to provide the one thing that gave him solace, and for this he was eternally grateful: when Harry was six, and against his father’s wishes, Adrienne had employed a piano teacher to tutor him in the basics of the instrument. And it was there, sitting with his fingers on the ivory keys, that Harry had acquired some sort of meaning to his life. He had since become a very, very good pianist. Partly because, both at school and at home, it was possible to hide either in the music block or the drawing room and keep himself busy and out of harm’s way.
His music tutor at Eton, seeing his talent, had suggested he audition for the Royal College of Music. His father refused to countenance it. The boy was going to Sandhurst. Playing the piano was for dilettantes and not a career for the future Lord Crawford.
And that had been that.
Harry had continued to practise as much as he could, although his playing at Sandhurst was limited to entertaining the Mess with modern pieces by Coward or Cole Porter, and Chopin was not on the agenda.
When the bouts of blackness hit him, Harry sometimes hoped for reincarnation, to be in a world where he could utilise his talent and his passion. Perhaps, he sighed, if he bought it in the war to come, he would be one step nearer his goal.
10
As Olivia entered the drawing room, she had the new and not unpleasant feeling of her arrival being noted approvingly. Lord Crawford was the first over to her.
‘Olivia, isn’t it? My, my, how that Indian sun nurtures buds into full bloom. Snifter?’ he said.
‘Thanks awfully,’ she replied as she took a gin from the tray proffered by the hovering butler.
‘Rather glad you’re my neighbour at table tonight, my dear,’ Lord Crawford commented, throwing a discreet nod in the butler’s direction. He answered with an equally discreet nod back. Even if Olivia hadn’t been beside him for dinner, she was now.
‘So, how are you finding Blighty?’ he asked.
‘It’s thrilling to see the country I’ve heard so much about for myself,’ Olivia lied smoothly.
‘My dear, I’m delighted that you should take the time to visit us in our rural Norfolk backwater. You’re doing the Season, so your papa tells me?’
‘Yes.’ Olivia nodded.
‘Jolly good show,’ Christopher chuckled. ‘One of the best times of my life. Now, let me introduce you to my wife. She was indisposed this afternoon, but seems to have recovered for this evening.’ He guided her over to a slim, elegant woman. ‘Adrienne, do meet Olivia Drew-Norris, whom I’m sure is going to break many chaps’ hearts this Season, just like you did years ago.’
Adrienne, Lady Crawford, turned towards Olivia. She extended her delicate white hand and, in a parody of the male handshake, their fingers touched.
‘Enchantée,’ said Adri
enne, smiling at her approvingly. ‘You are indeed a heartbreaker.’
‘It’s awfully kind of you to say so, Lady Crawford.’ Olivia was beginning to feel like a prize heifer being paraded around a showground, waiting to be judged. She hoped this wasn’t a pre-cursor of the Season to come.
‘Please, you must call me Adrienne. I am sure we will be great friends, n’est-ce pas?’
Lord Crawford looked down fondly at his wife. ‘Good show, good show. I’ll leave Olivia in your capable hands, my dear. Perhaps you can give her a few tips.’ He strode off to welcome two new arrivals.
Olivia took the moment to enjoy Adrienne’s own beauty. Although mature, in her early forties at least, Adrienne had the body of a slim young girl. And a beautifully sculpted face, with high, chiselled cheekbones, underneath a flawless, ivory skin. Her quintessential femininity reminded Olivia more of a delicate Indian Maharani, rather than the usual female English aristocrat, built as they were to withstand the harshness of the British weather, with wide hips to engender the brood of children they needed to continue the family line.
Adrienne was so elegant, so fragile, Olivia felt she would be more suited to a salon in Paris than a draughty English country house. And, indeed, her mother had told her that Adrienne was French. Judging by the way she wore what was a very simple black cocktail dress, adorned only with a string of creamy pearls, she had the effortless chic of her native land.
‘So, Olivia, you are back in this dreadful country, with its filthy weather and its lack of natural sunlight, n’est-ce pas?’
Adrienne stated this as a matter of fact and Olivia was taken aback by her bluntness. ‘I am certainly finding the change is taking rather a lot of getting used to,’ she answered as diplomatically as she could.
Adrienne’s tiny hand rested on hers. ‘Ma chérie, I too was brought up in a place full of warmth and light. When I left our château in the South of France to come here to England, I did not think I could bear it. You are the same. I can read how much you miss India in your eyes.’
‘I do,’ she whispered.
‘Well, I can only promise you it will get easier.’ Adrienne gave an elegant shrug. ‘Now, I must introduce you to my son, Harry. He is of your age and will keep you company whilst I play the hostess parfaite. Pardon, chérie, I will go find him and bring him to you.’
As she watched her hostess glide across the room, Olivia felt disarmed by Adrienne’s empathetic assessment. She was used, on such occasions, to only making ‘small talk’, never delving below the surface to discover more. Any form of inner thoughts – or worse, emotions – was frowned upon by British society. That much she had learnt from the Club in Poona. Her conversation with Adrienne, albeit short, had comforted her. And she allowed herself a secret smile.
Harry had been ordered by his mother to go and keep the young ‘Indian’ girl company. Dutifully, he made his way towards her across the room. A few paces away from her, he saw her lips open wide as she smiled.
Her cool, blonde beauty was suddenly animated, filled with a radiance beneath her creamy skin. Harry, not usually particularly aware of the physical charms of women, realised she was what most of his fellow officers would term a ‘stunner’.
He approached her. She saw him and said, ‘You must be Harry, sent to make polite conversation with me by your mother.’ Her turquoise eyes were filled with amusement as she spoke.
‘Yes. But I assure you, it will be my pleasure.’ He glanced at her empty glass. ‘May I find you another drink, Miss Drew-Norris?’
‘That would be just the ticket, thank you.’
Harry summoned the butler, and as Olivia placed her empty glass on the tray and took a fresh one she said, ‘I do apologise if you think me forward. I don’t mean to be. I feel rather sorry for you, that’s all, having to speak to endless people you’ve never met before.’
Olivia was surprised at her boldness and blamed the particularly potent gin. She looked at Harry, ‘handsome’ Harry, as Elsie had described him and decided that Elsie was right. Harry had managed to garner the best physical qualities of both his parents; he had the height of his father and the fine bone structure and luminous brown eyes of his mother.
‘I can assure you, Miss Drew-Norris, coming to talk to you isn’t a chore. You are, at least, under the age of seventy, which always helps. And, to be frank, around these parts, pretty unusual.’
Olivia laughed as Harry responded to her glibness. ‘Touché, although wearing that dinner suit, you could be taken for your father.’
Harry shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Why, Miss Drew-Norris, I do believe you are making fun of me. Do you not realise that war is coming to these fair isles and we must all make some sacrifices? For me, that’s wearing my father’s hand-me-down suit, even if it is three sizes too big for me.’
Olivia’s face darkened. ‘Do you really believe there will be war?’
‘Without a doubt.’ Harry nodded.
‘I agree, but Daddy refuses to countenance it,’ she added.
‘I’m sure that after a day’s shooting with my father, he may well have begun to.’ Harry raised his eyebrows.
‘I very much doubt that Herr Hitler can be pacified,’ sighed Olivia. ‘He’s intent on world domination, and his youth movement seems to be as passionate as he is.’
Harry stared at her in surprise. ‘If I may say so, Miss Drew-Norris, you seem awfully well informed. Rather unusual in a young lady.’
‘Do you find it unbecoming, women discussing politics?’ she asked.
‘Not at all. As a matter of fact, I find it extremely refreshing. Most girls simply aren’t interested.’
‘Well, I was fortunate to be tutored in India by a man who believed women had as much right to an education as men.’ Olivia gazed past him, her eyes suddenly sad. ‘He brought the world alive for me and made me aware of my relevance in it.’
‘Gosh, your chap sounds wasted in Poona. Wish I’d had that kind of inspiration at Eton. Couldn’t wait to finish and get out of the damned place.’ Harry lit a cigarette, fascinated. ‘And will you be taking your education further?’
Olivia shook her head ruefully. ‘I can’t imagine what Mummy and Daddy would say if I suggested it. They would be horrified: “What! A blue stocking in the family?!” No, I’m to be married off, assuming someone will have me, that is.’
Harry looked at her with genuine admiration. ‘Miss Drew-Norris, I assure you that will present no problem at all.’
She glanced up at him. ‘Even if it’s not what I want?’
Harry sighed as he stubbed his cigarette out into a nearby ashtray. ‘It occurs to me that most of us don’t have what we want. But do try not to be too downhearted. I believe there are changes coming, especially for women. And perhaps the only advantage of the prospect of war, is that it will alter the status quo even further.’
‘I can only hope it does,’ agreed Olivia. ‘And what of you?’ she asked, suddenly remembering that the golden rule, taught from the cradle, was never to dominate the conversation, especially with a gentleman.
‘Me?’ Harry shrugged. ‘I’m a mere soldier, on leave at present, but I fear not for long. We’ve just received orders to double the numbers in my new battalion, recruiting through the Territorial Army.’
‘I find it quite impossible to understand how life here can go on as normal.’ Olivia indicated the other members of the drinks party, guffawing loudly at some joke.
‘Well, it’s the British spirit, isn’t it?’ Harry commented. ‘The world may be coming to an end, but in houses such as these, everything goes on as it always has done. And in some respects, I thank God for it.’
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, dinner is served.’
‘Well, Miss Drew-Norris,’ said Harry, ‘it’s been a pleasure. By the way, mind the shot in the pheasant. Cook’s not terribly careful.’ He winked at her. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet again before you leave.’
Olivia spent dinner responding to Lord Crawford’s dreadful jokes and behaving like the you
ng lady she had been brought up to be. She risked the odd glance down the table at Harry, who she could see was doing his duty too, entertaining the wife of the Army Major. Later, as the men retired to the library and the women to the drawing room for coffee, Olivia feigned tiredness and excused herself.
Adrienne appeared by her side just as she was mounting the stairs. ‘Ma chérie, are you ill?’ she asked with concern.
Olivia shook her head. ‘No, just a headache, really.’
Adrienne held her by the shoulders and smiled. ‘It is this cold English weather that has chilled your tropical bones. I will ask Elsie to relight your fire and bring you some cocoa, and we will see you tomorrow. Perhaps you will take a walk with me in the garden and I can show you something that might remind you of home.’
Olivia nodded, appreciating Adrienne’s genuine concern. ‘Thank you.’
‘Je vous en prie. You enjoyed speaking to my son, Harry?’ she asked.
‘I did, awfully, thank you.’ Olivia could feel the heat rising in her cheeks and hoped Adrienne hadn’t noticed.
Adrienne nodded approvingly. ‘I knew you would. Bonne nuit, ma chérie.’
Olivia climbed the stairs wearily. She genuinely had a headache, probably brought on by the fact she was still unused to alcohol, but more importantly, she wanted time alone to think back and relish her conversation with Harry.
She changed into her nightgown in double-quick time, an art she had perfected since arriving in the cold English climate. As she hopped into bed and snuggled under the covers, there was a knock on her door.
‘Come.’
Elsie’s bright face appeared round the door. She was holding a tray with a mug of cocoa on it. ‘Only me, Miss Olivia.’ She walked across the room and placed the tray on the night table next to Olivia. ‘Made to my ma’s special recipe,’ she smiled, ‘with a dash of brandy for the cold.’
‘Thank you, Elsie.’ Olivia picked up the warm cup and nursed it in her hands as she watched Elsie rekindle the fire.
‘So, did you have a good evening, Miss Olivia?’
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