The Love Knot

by Charlotte Bingham

  Speaking of these matters and others the day before with Dorinda, Leonie had laughingly admitted that had she had blue blood she might well have fallen passionately in love with the first duke who proposed to her, but since she had not, she confided to Dorinda, she would be quite happy to stay as she was, nursing at Sister Angela’s while living with the devoted Mrs Dodd.

  ‘You can’t stay a spinster!’ Dorinda, who had stayed a spinster about long enough for her hair to be put up into a chignon, had been genuinely shocked.

  ‘Why not? Lady Angela is a spinster, and she is the happiest person I know.’

  ‘She is not happier than myself,’ Dorinda had gently reminded Leonie. ‘I am the happiest woman I know.’

  Leonie recognized the truth in this. Dorinda was the happiest woman that either of them knew.

  ‘And,’ Dorinda had continued, just a little severely, ‘I have been married not once but twice. That is how it is with the opposite sex, you will find. It is always necessary to be married, in order to be married again. Very few men can trust their own judgement when it comes to marriage, whereas if a woman has already been married they find themselves quite able to trust some other member of their sex to have had good taste! If you remain unmarried the male of the species will always assume that you must be flawed in some way.’

  ‘But Lady Angela is unmarried and has never, as I understand it, wanted to be anything else.’

  ‘Lady Angela is wedded to the King, and you can not have a greater wedding than that, my dear.’

  ‘No, no, of course, I understand that. So. Now we can see things as they really are.’

  Dorinda had looked round from her dressing mirror at Leonie’s suddenly impatient tone, her attention drawn away from her beautiful face to Leonie’s own stunning looks, her eyes so turquoise that Dorinda could never look into them without thinking of the sea.

  ‘The rules of Society are such that you must be married in order to be a man’s mistress, and you must be married in order to be married again. But what if you are like poor Mrs Brancaster? What if you have loved and been faithful to your husband but been humiliated by him? Must you stay, as she was meant to do, and remain miserable under his roof, or do you invite scandal and bring unhappiness on your family by running away?’

  ‘Mrs Brancaster has not behaved wisely. You do not leave your house because your husband behaves badly.’

  ‘What would you advise? I saw her only yesterday and she is like a dying person, a wraith, and Mr Chantry, who has always been so devoted, is in despair.’

  ‘You cannot advise a woman who is determined on loving her husband, except to try to stop loving him, anyway for a little while. And if she is too weak to do that, well, then there is only one course open to her, and that is to take a house in St John’s Wood and find herself a different way of going on. That is how Society is, Leonie, my dear, and always will be, I would think.’

  ‘In other words, what we are really saying is that Society rewards women only if they are unloving, and shrewd. It does not reward the loving woman who cares for her babies and is innocent and kind?’

  Dorinda, who had known only unkindness when she was small but had managed to bravely accept her lot, had nodded, but the look in her eyes was of such surprise that Leonie had to laugh.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Because – because all this is not at all new to you while being very novel to me, I am afraid!’

  ‘My dear, if we expect life to be truly wonderful for women we are wishing for the moon. What we must accept is that we have to be stronger than men. If women are to survive they have to have hearts of oak.’

  But all that was yesterday, and of a sudden there was a pounding, and it was not just Leonie’s heart as she stared at herself and Monsieur Claude in the dressing mirror in front of them both. Pitou, the little french maid, went finally, if reluctantly, to the door, for she was much more interested in placing the flowers in Mademoiselle Lynch’s hair than in finding out who might be the perpetrator of the sudden, hard knocking on the outer door.

  Opening it cautiously, she was immediately swept aside by Mrs Dodd, who did not push but flung herself into the large, beautifully dressed and chintzed room, her outdoor clothes looking drab and odd beside her goddaughter’s Japanese kimono – a gift from Dorinda to Leonie, and the latest thing to wear while being dressed and coiffed.

  ‘Leonie, my dear, disaster is about to strike! There is about to be a terrible, terrible scandal, just like that of last season, only far worse.’

  Leonie indicated for the hairdresser to stand back as she stood up.

  ‘I was not living with you last Season, Godmother dearest,’ she told her, taking her hands, and drawing her further down the room, in an effort to try to hold the subsequent conversation in private.

  ‘You must go at once to Mrs Leveen and tell her. The most terrible, the most ghastly, the worst news! That wretched Monsieur P! He is so enraged with Monsieur Worth for not adopting his Grecian ideas of dress – I am sure it is he whom we must all blame! I am sure of it! At any rate I had the news just now from Madame Chloe who sent her maid round to my house with a letter to tell me, and she did, she told me in her own writing, that she was sure that it was Monsieur P who is at the bottom of all this ...’

  ‘At the bottom of what, Godmother dear? What is Monsieur P meant to be responsible for?’

  ‘Why, for telling Lady C’s maid which dress Mrs Leveen had chosen to wear for her ball. The ivy leaf motif on the train, everything, she has copied everything with the single exception of the colour. She is to be in a ghastly pink.’

  ‘Is that so terrible?’

  ‘Is that so – is that so terrible? It is a disaster. My dear Leonie, your friend Mrs Leveen is about to stand at the top of the ballroom steps receiving her guests in the same ball gown as that madwoman Lady Castlemount! Everyone knows that the wretched woman has some sort of nervous hysteria which means that she needs must draw attention to herself on any and every occasion. She will stop at nothing to bring down Mrs Leveen, who has been so kind to her, but of whom, I am now sure, she is violently, but violently, jealous, having herself married a penniless person.’

  Leonie began to understand the whole awful drama that was about to come about. Dorinda in her own house being humiliated by the triumphant Lady Castlemount whom, Leonie knew, Dorinda had only asked to the ball because she was on the fringes of Society and needed some kind of a leg up if she was to be asked to anything at all by the all-important three hostesses.

  ‘Oh, madame, madame, Mrs Leveen to be in the same gown! What will she do? The King will leave!’ Monsieur Claude, having made no pretence at not straining to overhear the whole conversation, now started to wring his hands. ‘I will be disgraced! People will think it is I! Going as I do from ‘ouse to ‘ouse. I am sure they will think it is I! I am dead!’

  ‘Monsieur Claude,’ Leonie turned to the hairdresser, briefly, ‘now is not the time to wring our hands, now is the time to gird our loins.’

  ‘But I am not a girder, mademoiselle, I am an ‘airdresser, and we are always to blame for everything. It is a fact. I shall kill myself, it is the only way!’

  ‘Mais non, Monsieur Claude, non!’ Pitou begged him.

  ‘You will not kill yourself, Monsieur Claude, you will follow me, and we will go to Madame Leveen and tell her everything. The situation is not too late to be remedied, I am sure.’

  None of them pretended to be trying not to run as, scrambling any old how out of Leonie’s room, they fled down the corridor to Dorinda’s suite.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Dorinda called, all prettiness and relaxation as she surveyed herself in the dressing mirrors that surrounded her, ready at last to descend downstairs for her great evening.

  She turned as they trooped in, but on seeing the white faces before her she knew at once that something quite terrible must have happened.

  ‘Mrs Dodd, you here? And Monsieur Claude? What is the matter? Has there been an acci
dent?’

  ‘Not yet, Dorinda, not yet.’

  Leonie’s heart sank to the bottom of her slippers as she clutched the Japanese gown around her and told Dorinda of the terrible news.

  And really it could not have been more terrible, for Dorinda had never looked more beautiful, in her tiara and her new ball gown with its wondrously decorated train, but of course she saw at once, as soon as Leonie had finished speaking, just what a social disgrace awaited her.

  ‘I am afraid there is nothing to be done.’ She glanced briefly at the clock on the chimneypiece. ‘I mean I can not, I regret, send someone to kill my lady Castlemount because she will be on her way to dine by now.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I will have to change, of course. But…’ and here she paused and closed her eyes for a few seconds. ‘Due to my busy life I have not one ball gown left that I can be quite, quite sure that the King, or indeed anyone else, has not seen somewhere, some time. Oh, why did I not listen to Mr L when he advised me to order at least two for tonight in case of an accident of some kind? He is always right about everything, but I thought it was just too extravagant, seeing the cost of Monsieur Worth’s gowns, and having ordered so many at the start of the year.’

  Leonie thought for a second. It was true that Dorinda had what seemed like a hundred ball gowns, but it was also true that there was not one suitably grand gown that she could be quite sure had not been seen by the King, whose memory for such details was prodigious.

  ‘There is one gown,’ Leonie said suddenly, breaking the ghastly silence that had fallen. ‘One gown that you can be sure has not been seen by anyone at all, anywhere, at any time.’

  They all turned from staring up into the wardrobes that contained Dorinda’s gowns and stared instead at Leonie.

  ‘And that is, my dear?’

  Dorinda was outwardly calm, but so white that everyone present knew that her insides must have turned to water.

  ‘Mine. You can be quite, quite sure that my gown has not been seen by anyone.’

  Of a sudden the whole possibility swam towards both young women. The gown that Leonie had been about to wear was not the ‘ess’ shape and it was not to be worn with a tiara, but with her hair dressed loose, and flowers – flowers which Leonie had already begun to take out of her own hair while the hairdresser, unable to bear the destruction of his so-recently executed art, sobbed hopelessly on Pitou’s shoulder.

  ‘No, my dear, I must wear my tiara for the King. He loves tiaras, and the more intricate the better.’

  ‘Well then, wear your tiara, to the back, in the Roman way, and decorate it with flowers. But don’t you see, with your chestnut coloured hair, and your wonderful beauty, the King will not mind. Besides, it is your house, and you may do as you wish in your house. Even the King understands that. He is coming to you, you are not coming to him.’

  Dorinda suddenly looked decisive.

  ‘You’re right, Leonie. It is my house, and besides, I know that the King is always so bored, he may well be amused by my looking different from everyone else, may he not? I know for a fact that he has a kind heart. And more than that, it will give them all something to talk about! But what about you?’

  ‘Me? Why, I will wear your dress, and so where will be the victory for Lady Castlemount? She will have been hoping to destroy your glorious night, planning to walk towards you, in front of the King, of the whole Court, wearing the same dress – she must have spent weeks planning it – but now all that will happen is that she will pass by the receiving party into the ballroom only to find that she has merely worn the same dress as myself, a nobody. It will be her disaster, not yours. As to me, it could not matter less, for in the event I am only one of hundreds invited, and no-one will remember me. What does it matter what Miss Leonie Lynch wears, when all is said and done? My patients will not get to hear of it, and if they did they would only laugh.’

  Dorinda drew Leonie to her, and kissed her heartily on both cheeks.

  ‘You are a wonderful young woman, and I will never forget your generosity and ingenuity. The dress on me will be the talk of the town!’

  Lawrence Leveen turned as he heard the servants gasp at the sight of their mistress, with no heavy jewellery and only flowers decorating her tiara, set now in a classical way at the back of her rich chestnut hair. She looked more beautiful than they had ever seen her as she descended the great staircase dressed only in the simplest of silk dresses, decorated only by all that was natural, and wearing only the simplest of slippers on her feet.

  After the barest of pauses as he took in her new look, Mr L said, ‘My darling, I had no idea that you would decide to become a goddess for me tonight. You look younger and more beautiful than the flowers you are wearing. How brilliant you are to decide to look unlike anyone else! You remind me of a portrait of the Empress Josephine. I can not commend you more.’

  ‘I am so glad you approve, darling Mr L,’ Dorinda told him, at the same time smiling and inclining her head to the amazed servants. ‘You see, this is to be the newest fashion, quite soon – and I do think we should always make sure to be in advance, don’t you?’

  ‘Such a graceful line – turn for me – and the tiara worn to the back in a classical mode, and the flowers – all so refreshing. You will make everyone else look like dowagers. I am in awe of your taste, Dorinda, do you know that, in awe, as always?’

  Dorinda smiled gratefully. She had always known that Mr L was head and shoulders above every man she had ever met, but never more than at that moment when he must have surely guessed from her late arrival and her changed look that there had actually been a near disaster, but he was much too much the gentleman to remark on it.

  ‘I love you, Lawrence, and I always will.’

  For a second, because she had never before called him by his Christian name, it looked to Dorinda as if her husband’s eyes were filled with something more than admiration as he took her hand and kissed it.

  London would always remember the Leveen Ball at Lawrence House. Not just because Mrs Leveen was the first hostess of the new century to adopt the Grecian or Empire style of dress, and to abandon the ‘ess’ shape – however temporarily – but because the King chose the unknown Miss Lynch to lead off the ball.

  Her dress being a little too big for her, His Majesty was able to view a little more of Miss Lynch than would normally be altogether conventional, but, as with so many middle-aged monarchs, he did not mind in the least, for appreciating beautiful young women was one of his many interests, most particularly young women who danced as beautifully as Miss Lynch.

  Lady Castlemount on the other hand was seen to leave the ball a great deal earlier than most, and without so much as a single name to her dance card, the all-powerful Lady Londonderry having remarked loudly and sarcastically on the similarity of her dress to that of Miss Lynch, and having within everyone’s hearing condemned her for her conceit in choosing the same style of dress as such a young gel as Miss Lynch. As it turned out Lady Castlemount was quizzed and laughed at so many times that even her husband, who was very old, noticed.

  The next day several of the less kind Society columns writing up the Ball at Lawrence House remarked on a certain Lady C––––’s having had the misfortune to wear the exact same style of dress as a certain beautiful Miss L–––– who, in the event, had been chosen by His Majesty the King to lead off the ball.

  A rose and a cabbage can bear the same leaf but we will always look at the rose, and so it proved at the great L–––– ball where a certain Lady C tried to emulate the beautiful Miss L and came off worse. How much better to be Mrs L, the hostess, whose incomparable beauty was set off by the newer simpler style, wrote one scribe.

  And so the wretched Lady C was forced to go to Baden Baden to take the waters for a little while, and on her return to find herself exactly back where she had first begun, on the outskirts of Society.

  In her prolonged absence it was left to Dorinda to sum it all up.

  Lying on her chaise longue of a la
te afternoon with her eternally adoring husband leafing through the many letters of admiration sent to them after the ball, she remarked, ‘You know, they always do say, Lawrence, if you want to make an enemy, help someone.’

  Sixteen

  Mercy had only been able to read of the ball. Of course Dorinda had invited her, but both knew that it would be impossible for Mercy to accept, her position in Society being, to say the least, uncertain. She had contented herself with moving into a small house overlooking the Thames at Chelsea, a house so far removed from the fashionable stamping grounds of Mayfair that there was no risk whatsoever of her encountering either her husband, Lady Violet, or any other family acquaintance who might be disposed to cut her.

  Naturally Mercy’s little boy had become his mother’s whole life, his growth and weight a matter of her daily concern and her whole day centred around him and his loving ways. And once the small house and garden with its river view and its ancient wistaria had been adapted to the needs of the little household, and some furniture purchased, not to mention curtains and lights, and a maid hired to help Josephine, Mercy found, to her amazement, that she felt more at ease with herself and the world than she had ever felt before. It was as if in the role of mother she had at last been able to find confidence. A mother could not be rejected as a wife could be. Motherhood was a simple, natural role and no-one, not even Lady Violet, could usurp her, or take her position from her.

  Sometimes she thought of her father with surprise. He had always seemed so indifferent to her as she was growing up that his actions over her husband’s infidelity had been astonishing to his daughter. Perhaps it had been the shock of his discovering his wife’s continuing infidelity with his son-in-law that had prompted him to come to Mercy’s defence so rapidly, and with such ruthlessness, that it was almost breathtaking. He had protected her from his adored Lady Violet, and remembering how much he had once loved his wife it seemed to Mercy that Lord Duffane had been more than kind.