Gervaise stared down the table at Dorinda. For his part her words were something he, in truth, had dreaded to hear. He did not want his Dorinda Blue to join that long line of ladies who could not wait to display their physical charms to delight the future king.
Nor did he wish that same future king to pick on his adorable mistress as his next amour, but what could he do? There would be a scandal within his set should he refuse to take her to supper. He realized, sadly, that he might lose the current delight of his life, for much as he loved his dear, kind wife, for him Dorinda Blue was something quite other.
Leonie was standing still in the hall of the nursing home, pausing for a few seconds between checking on patients and thinking of nothing much at all, other than that her feet were aching at the end of a long day, when the fat gentleman with the cigar passed her once more.
She could not believe the bad luck of it. For here she was again, cowering in the dark shadows of the hall as he trod heavily by, the smoke from his cigar mingling with the quite overpowering smell of his eau de Portugal. It was strange, and at the same time most unfortunate, that this very important personage always seemed to pass Leonie when he was making what was obviously meant to be a discreet exit from Sister Angela’s. It was as if fate kept throwing her in front of him, as if he was meant to meet her, which she very well knew that she was not, for the Prince of Wales did not meet young women like Leonie socially, and they certainly did not meet him.
At last she heard the hall door close behind him. Feeling more than relieved, not to mention amazed, that he had in fact exited into a hansom cab of all things, Leonie hurried off into the wet spring night. Happily, Mrs Dodd’s house was so near to the nursing home that it was easy to just shoot up an umbrella and run through the light rain to her godmother’s front door.
As she ran through the London rain Leonie thought of the Prince of Wales, for she was almost sure that it was he who had passed her both times. So sure was she that as the rain splashed around her buttoned boots and off her large black umbrella she fell to wondering what it was that had brought such a distinguished personage to the nursing home.
As she ran on, the rain beginning to dampen her coat, she fancied that, despite the scandals that had dogged him in previous years, the Prince of Wales must probably be a very kind man who had taken to visiting some especially sick friend. She knew of course that she would probably never find out the true reason for his presence at Sister Angela’s, for it was not the kind of place where people asked questions. The unspoken rule at Sister Angela’s was that what was, just was, and no-one was encouraged to say anything about what happened there, not to each other, not to anyone, perhaps not even to themselves. Once they had hung up their stiff white starched aprons and hurried off into the evening everyone knew that whatever had passed there had passed, and discretion was all that mattered.
Reaching Mrs Dodd’s front door at last, Leonie put up her key to the lock, but before she could turn it the housemaid had already opened to her. She smiled at ‘Miss Leonie’ as she was known in the Dodd household, and Leonie, shaking her umbrella, smiled back at her as she stepped into the hall. The maid took the gamp from her, the hall light playing kindly on the servant’s crisp uniform, her tidy hair, her polished shoes.
‘Thank you, Mavis.’
Leonie had not yet become used to the felicity of having a maid open the door to her on any night, but on such a cold rainy night as this it was particularly welcoming.
‘My dear, Leonie, my dear.’
Mrs Dodd’s expression of greeting was full of her usual good humoured kindness, but when Leonie stared up into her godmother’s small, boot button curranty brown eyes she realized that she was more than worried about something, she was most anxious. She could see as she mounted the stairs towards her that Mrs Dodd’s colour was heightened, and her costume of dull maroon with black silk lacings appeared to be a little too tight for her, because her breathing was a great deal faster than it normally was. Leonie privately feared that she might be going to have an attack of the ‘pulps’ as palpitations were called in the Dodds’ household.
‘My dear, come quickly. Come up at once, to my sit–– to my drawing room. Would you come?’
Leonie could only wonder as she dutifully trod up the patterned stair carpet to the first floor what it was that was worrying her godmother. What could she have to talk about that was so urgent?
‘It was Madame Chloe, my dear. She came round, only an hour ago, and she told me of your – well – excursion with Miss Cordel. How you both took it upon yourselves to look after this young mannequin. And Leonie dear, alas, that Lady Violet has taken a strong dislike to you on this account!’
Mrs Dodd put a small, plump hand to her lips and there was a pause as she swallowed hard, while Leonie, in her turn, realized the implications, possibly endless, behind the words.
For a second or two Leonie saw Eastgate Street looming once again, a front door with a step whitened weekly by chalk, a geranium in the window, but also a bed shared with her foster mother’s visiting children, and no crisply uniformed maid opening the front door to her, no warm fires in every room, no endless steaming hot water, no beds warmed with a ceramic brick, no cool linen sheets.
‘The whole disaster turns on the fact that the Duchess of Clanborough had to be put off. She was there, waiting to look Miss Cordel over. It was too awful. It seems that because of this incident Lady Violet has threatened to withdraw her custom from Madame Chloe and to induce her friends to do the same should you be seen, you know, nursing people together, or whatever it was that the two of you were intent upon doing.’
Mrs Dodd’s handkerchief was now dabbing her lips.
‘Oh dear, oh dear, Leonie, we cannot have this any more, dear. You must know that you are not one of them, dear. You are – well, you are – well, you know, dear …’ Mrs Dodd’s handkerchief conducted some unseen orchestra now. ‘Well, dear. It is difficult for you to understand, but you are one of us. Although …’ she paused, her mind struggling towards a newer and more difficult thought. ‘Although of course to us, to your foster mother and myself, since your mother was from the aristocracy, you are one of them. That is very true.’ After a long pause while she swam slowly towards this last thought, and then on to the next, she began again. ‘But you see, dear, they do not know anything about your mother. They would think of you as simply one of us. And that being so – and this is so important to know, dear – they could not possibly accept you as one of them. D’you see?’
Exhausted with what was, to her, the ultimate statement on Society and its rules – the them and us of it, as it were – Mrs Dodd collapsed on the sofa behind her, and waved her handkerchief about her face.
‘I should hate to let you down, in any way at all, my dear godmother.’
Her godmother looked across at Leonie and nodded in sad agreement.
‘Oh, I know that, dear. It is just that this is such a hard lesson to learn, most especially for you, coming as you do from Eastgate Street, and yet not originating from Eastgate Street, having been fostered by dear Mrs Lynch the way you were.
‘You see, dear, I really do understand that it is really rather awkward for you in many respects, but nevertheless I must ask you to repeat this valuable lesson to me, so that we may both know, once and for all, that we are, as Lady Angela would say, as one on this.’
Leonie frowned, and after a small pause, she said, ‘They, the aristocracy, are them.’ At this her godmother nodded with satisfaction, as if she was listening to a singer hitting top C. ‘On the other hand,’ her goddaughter continued, ‘we are “them” to them. And not us.’ Again came a nod of satisfaction. ‘We have to remember that just as we are them to them, so they are us to themselves.’
Mrs Dodd sighed.
‘Just so, exactly. We are not them. I knew you would understand. This is just how it is, dear, and must always be accepted. The them and the us of Society. Once understood, never forgotten, Leonie dear.’
&nb
sp; Leonie nodded, again in agreement. She quite saw that she must never forget. Nor must she ever put a foot wrong again. She sighed inwardly. It was a pity. She had liked Miss Cordel so much, but there it was. It had to be accepted. She was one of them, and Miss Cordel was ‘one of us’.
There was not the smallest regret on Mrs Dodd’s side, and she now nodded, satisfied that her protégée and goddaughter had seen the error of her ways and would never again mistake persons such as Lady Violet or Miss Cordel for her equals.
‘Change into your Chinese tea gown, dear Leonie, and we will take supper together in front of the fire, here. Just the two of us, all cosy and nice. And then you will oblige me by reading to me, perhaps, dear? I have to say that the dear nuns’ elocution lessons certainly paid off. You have such a pretty voice, although doubtless that is – well, it just might be something that you inherited, too, dear, from your mother’s side. Voices are inherited, I believe.’
Mrs Dodd, despite her lecture on the them and the us of Society, loved to refer to Leonie’s mysterious parentage, knowing as she did that her poor dead mother had been from an aristocratic background. Such had not been the case with Leonie’s foster mother, Mrs Lynch. She had been less than impressed by her foster daughter’s aristocratic blood. Indeed it often seemed to Leonie that her dearly beloved foster mother was more than a little embarrassed by this sad fact, seeing that side of Leonie as a hindrance to ‘getting on’.
‘We don’t want any of your la-di-da ways around here, little Miss Lynch,’ she would say if Leonie objected to anything that any of her older brothers and sisters might be doing. ‘There’s no point in being an aristocrat if you ain’t got no castle, as my dad was always saying. No point at all.’
It always seemed to Leonie that Mrs Lynch had a deep suspicion of the aristocracy, considering the upper echelons to be much worse than they should be, and loose in their morals. But, worst of all, loose with their money, a sin in her mind in anyone, but most of all in the very rich.
‘What you want in a rich man, to my view, is someone with an impecunious way with him that will not set the noses of others out of jointure, and will not neither put it in the minds of others to cut off his head. When you see a rich man you don’t want someone to say I wish I was him, you want to say How nice to see such a nice man with gentle ways not behaving like a Rajah, that’s what you want.’
All this oft repeated wisdom from her childhood ran through Leonie’s head as she walked up the stairs to her bedroom to change. For a moment she despaired of her particular position in society. Neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring, but a half and halfer who would never, truly, fit in. By the time she reached the corridor outside her bedroom she was seeing herself as a motley figure, the top half blonde haired and turquoise of eye, the bottom half all serge stockings and heavy boots.
And yet she was never far from being able to be cheered up, and there was no doubt that the thought of a delicious and soothing supper in front of the fire with Mrs Dodd was very inviting. Also, she liked to hear about the mother she had never known, although she had realized that she must have been a bad girl, or she would not have given birth to Leonie.
Of one thing Leonie was quite sure and that was that she did not want to be like her mother, always described by Aisleen Lynch as ‘a poor patrician creature, God rest her, who made a mistake in life only to pay for it with her death.’
For her part, as she waited for Leonie to return, it occurred to Mrs Dodd that such a sensible girl as Leonie would never do or say anything to hurt her friends or acquaintances in any way, much less – in the case of poor Madame Chloe – their trade. It would have been, Mrs Dodd decided as she helped herself to an evening cordial with a dash of fortification slipped into it, it would have been Miss Cordel who became involved with the unfortunate young mannequin.
All that insistence on taking her to Sister Angela’s Nursing Home, that was Miss Cordel, not Leonie. Leonie would not have wanted to make a show of herself in that way. Over the years Mrs Dodd had observed it to be an unfortunate characteristic of aristocratic circles that they would, and did, find it necessary to repay Society for its undoubted munificence to them by trying to do good wherever, and whenever, possible.
Or as her friend Madame Chloe had said, somewhat pithily, ‘forever sticking their noses where they shouldn’t and making it harder for the rest of us lower mortals to get on with our lives, God help us!’ No, Mrs Dodd told herself, she knew that Leonie had too much sense to have made a fuss about such a worthless girl as the mannequin most likely was, a girl of no consequence, a girl who was only one step up from the streets; a bad girl, undoubtedly. A foolish girl, assuredly, up from the country and bound to fall into trouble. It was Miss Cordel who insisted on taking this most unsuitable young person to Sister Angela’s Nursing Home. Such a committed act of spontaneous and impulsive charity would not have been forthcoming from a former incumbent of Eastgate Street. The narrow street where Leonie had received her upbringing was not given to crying over worthless little mannequins, girls who often came to London already in a parlous state, who would alight from trains all innocent and stupid, only to be bought by the first man or madam who met them at the station. Coming from Eastgate Street Leonie did not suffer from a ‘bleeding heart’, she had seen too much of poor people to feel sorry for them, been too poor herself. It was only people who had never been poor, who lived off the earnings of others, who kept trying to make those same others’ lives better. Unrealistic to a fault, that was the aristocracy.
Mrs Dodd sat back, staring into the fire. Her fortifying cordial had made her feel much better. A crisis had, thank goodness, been avoided. She felt most strongly that all would now proceed smoothly, Leonie would become a right hand of Lady Angela, and she would live to be proud of the little orphaned girl whom she had placed that cold and rainy night with her friend Mrs Lynch in Eastgate Street.
Upstairs in her heavily draped bedroom with its mahogany bed and large, inlaid mahogany cupboards and dressing mirror, Leonie stared at herself thoughtfully in the large looking glass.
This part of London, this new part that she now inhabited, seemed to be full of so many pitfalls. Thanks to her upbringing she had thought she knew a little of how to go on, but now she realized that she had known nothing at all, and it seemed to her now that everywhere she turned there was some new pitfall to be avoided, some new way that she should not behave, some new place where she should not be, and all of these hazards not really hidden, but waiting to pounce.
As she stared into her undoubtedly beautiful turquoise eyes, Leonie chided her mirrored reflection severely. She must be more careful. She did not want to jeopardize whatever future she might have by putting one of her slender feet on the wrong path and earning herself an ignominious or shaming dismissal from Sister Angela’s Nursing Home.
Eyes down, girl, from now on! she instructed herself, before changing into the fine Chinese tea gown so recently purchased for her by Mrs Dodd.
She turned back once more to the long mirror and sighed, this time with pleasure in the beautiful tea gown that was now affording her so much welcome relief from her underclothes and the whalebones of her corset, not to mention the starch of her uniform.
Yes, it is eyes down from now on, Leonie Lynch. And that means right down. Wherever you are. It does not matter where you are, you have seen nothing – most of all you have never, ever seen the future King of England on a private visit to Sister Angela’s and taking a hansom cab home. Not ever!
As to Miss Cordel, and here Leonie sighed to herself, she would have to continue on her lonely way. To be presented at Court, go to Ascot, attend evening balls – in fact do whatever girls from her impeccable background did during their few months on the ‘marriage mart’, as Mrs Dodd and Madame Chloe always called the London Season – and that would be that.
It was quite clear to Leonie that it was impossible for herself and Miss Cordel to go on being friends, or even acquaintances. It would hurt too many people.
Besides, if Leonie was realistic, Miss Cordel had really no need of her. Once the Season swung into life she would have a hundred friends from whom to choose. Their circumstances were far too far apart – whole worlds apart. As far apart as Sister Angela’s Nursing Home and Eastgate Street, really, now that she came to think of it.
And not only that – and here Leonie smiled at her image in the mirror – she was enjoying herself far too much.
Her resolution not to be friends with Miss Cordel any more was just as much to do with that as it was to do with any generous feelings towards her godmother and mentor, Mrs Dodd, and not to admit as much would be really very wrong.
Leonie’s life was as grand as she would ever want it to be. As a matter of fact it was twice as grand and luxurious as she had ever dared to imagine it could be. She had no wish to meet some aristocratic or other gentleman and marry him. The guiding rule of her life was that she did not want to be like her mother and die in childbirth. What she wanted most in the world was to be like Lady Angela – elegant, beautiful, and unmarried. She did not want to be dependent on some man who would betray her, as she realized her own young mother – whoever she had been – must have been betrayed. Leonie wanted only to come back to her godmother in the evenings, to go on wearing fashionable clothes made by Madame Chloe and bought by Mrs Dodd. In other words, she wanted to go on enjoying life at just the level she had now reached.
She loved her godmother, albeit that she had funny ways of being and doing. She loved being in this part of London. And Leonie was quite sure, more sure than she had ever been of anything, that she did not want more.
More was what she sensed when she heard that old gentleman coming downstairs smoking his cigar. More would be deeper and deeper curtsies, taking her into deeper and deeper waters, and the higher she flew, Leonie instinctively felt, the greater could be her fall. Most of all, more than anything, the memory of those wretched women in the poor house kept her from ever wanting to fall anywhere, except, as she thought she had now fallen, on her own two elegant feet.
The Love Knot Page 12