The Art of Love

by Lacey, Lilac

  ‘There’s a concert on the promenade tonight,’ Tara said to her mother a few days later when she returned from another trip to the lending library. Lady Penge was looking stronger already, she thought optimistically. She was sitting on a bench in the back garden with some needlework in her hands and Tara realized she couldn’t actually recall the last occasion on which she had seen her mother make time for such a frivolous thing. ‘Shall we go?’ Tara asked.

  Her mother examined her stitches. ‘What kind of music are they playing?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a mixed programme, some Mozart, some Brahms, some music hall pieces,’ Tara said.

  ‘Music hall?’ Lady Penge said no more but she raised one elegant eyebrow.

  ‘Yes,’ Tara said, keeping the defiance out of her voice with an effort. ‘But the music is not the point of a concert.’

  At that Lady Penge put down her sewing and looked quite shocked. ‘I would have said the music was the only point of a concert,’ she said.

  ‘Not at all,’ Tara said, preventing herself from grinding her teeth with great difficulty. ‘A concert is about the people who will be there, we should be there - ’

  She was interrupted by an unexpected gurgle of laughter. ‘Oh, Tara,’ her mother said. ‘You are so easy to tease! You take your social life so seriously.’

  For a moment Tara stared at her mother, unable to remember the last time her mother had teased her. Then she flopped down on the bench beside her, smiling. ‘I take it you would like to come with me?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Lady Penge. ‘It should be fun.’

  Impulsively Tara hugged her mother. ‘I’m so glad you’re feeling better,’ she said.

  At seven o’clock Tara and her mother arrived on the Promenade. ‘The thing to do,’ Tara whispered to her mother after they had paid sixpence each for seats arranged in a ring around the bandstand, ‘is to circle around and see if we meet anyone of our acquaintance; anyone who is summering in Bournemouth will be here.’

  ‘Tara,’ her mother whispered back, ‘I have been to a concert before, you know.’ Tara cast her eyes across the gathering crowd, the ladies in their pale coloured summer dresses and the gentlemen in light evening coats. They were not as smartly dressed as their London counterparts, but the chattering and greetings were just as loud. She was sure Mark would be here, perhaps with his family, and then, just for an instant, her heart seemed to stop beating as she saw Leo. She only glimpsed him for a moment. He was dressed, as the other gentlemen were dressed, in buff and black. Then a large matron and her noisy offspring obscured her view and when they had passed, Leo had gone. Heedless of her mother, Tara eeled her way through the crowd to where she had seen him, standing alone, beyond the ring of chairs but there was no sign of him. She whirled back and scanned the crowd, wondering in which direction she had gone, then turning abruptly again she found herself face to face with Mark.

  He too was dressed in buff and black and he was smiling at her genially, in a most un-Leo like fashion. ‘Were you looking for me?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Tara said, and then recalled her manners, ‘that is to say, yes. But I seem to have lost my mother.’

  ‘Is that her?’ Mark asked, and looking over her shoulder Tara saw her mother making her way towards her looking rather unimpressed.

  ‘Yes,’ Tara said. ‘Mother, this is my friend Mr Reeves, Mr Reeves, may I introduce you to my mother Lady Penge.’ She hoped very much that her mother would not say anything about the way in which she had abruptly abandoned her.

  But Lady Penge merely said ‘How nice to meet you, Mr Reeves,’ and allowed him to escort them both over to meet his parents and sister. It transpired that Lady Penge and Mrs Reeves had been debutantes together and although she had not seen each other since they were very pleased to become reacquainted. Tara let the bright conversation between the two women flow over her while she leaned back in her seat and listened to the orchestra warming up. She must stop thinking of Leo, even if he had been there chasing after him would do no good. He had walked out on her, she had written her letter of apology and it was up to him to make the next move. The warming up of the instrumentalists coalesced into a piece of music, but Tara found she couldn’t concentrate. Suddenly coming to the concert did not seem like such a good idea and she wished she were elsewhere, except the only place she wished to be was by Leo’s side, and that was not possible. She wondered once more where on earth he was.

  ‘You seem distracted.’ Tara became aware of the fact that Mark was speaking to her and that the musicians had reached the interval.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trying to pull her thoughts back to the present.

  ‘Is something weighing on your mind?’ Mark asked lightly.

  Tara shook her head, ‘Music often sends me into a dream,’ she lied. Mark looked quite surprisingly sympathetic, but she was not prepared to spill her heart to him.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to take a turn around the bandstand with me,’ Mark suggested. ‘I could introduce you to some of my friends and expand your circle of acquaintance here in Bournemouth.’

  ‘That would be very kind of you,’ said Tara, touched by his thoughtfulness and found herself really looking at Mark, seeing him not Leo, for the first time. He had a kind face, she thought. Not exciting and passionate, like Leo’s, but kind. He looked as if he would really listen if she chose to pour all her troubles in his ear, but allowing him to take her arm in his own, feeling his steadiness and self-assured manner as they walked, Tara had a better idea. She liked Mark, she would do what she did with all the personable young men she knew, she would flirt with him. That was the way to make herself forget about Leo. She smiled up at him brightly as they walked and was gratified when he smiled in return. Really, it would not be hard to flirt with Mark, it would be fun.

  ‘That was a lovely concert,’ Beatrice Reeves said after the national anthem had been played. There had been rather a lot of music hall pieces and Tara hoped her mother would not say anything disparaging about the quality of the selection, but she was in luck, the sea air seemed to have had a mellowing effect on Lady Penge.

  ‘It was so nice to see you again,’ her mother said instead, clearly choosing not to answer Mrs Reeves’ remark directly. ‘Would you like to come to dinner with us on Thursday, just our two families for a tiny dinner party? We are staying at Dogrose Cottage.’ That would suit her down to the ground, Tara thought with satisfaction as Mrs Reeves accepted the invitation. The principal obstacle in her plan to flirt with Mark was the fact that he spent his days working in his office on the high street and was largely unavailable during the week. Other than dealing with wills she had only a vague idea of what he did. Soliciting, she supposed, and suppressed a grin.

  ‘Tell me about your work,’ Tara said to Mark two days later, over asparagus soup and freshly baked bread rolls. She suddenly found she was quite interested. Other than Leo she had never spent time with a man who had a profession before. Most of her gentleman friends were like Rodney, destined to be gentleman farmers, or Freddie who seemed to make his money at the stock exchange, although she had only a hazy idea of how.

  ‘Well, primarily I help people to write their wills, and of course I execute them when the time comes, as I told you. As well as that I advise on contracts and draw up deeds of purchase,’ Mark said, looking flattered at the attention, as she hoped he would.

  ‘Deeds of purchase?’ Tara said. ‘What does that mean?’ By the end of the evening she was considerably wiser regarding the duties of a solicitor and Mark, in turn, had shown quite an interest in what she had to say about the running of Penge. He really was very nice,’ she thought and she and her mother bid their guests goodbye at the doorstep.

  ‘Now you must come to our little party on Saturday,’ Mrs Reeves said as they were leaving. ‘Promise me you will.’

  ‘We would both be delighted,’ Lady Penge said, looking quite enthused by the idea. Maybe what had happened was all for the best, Tara thought, sudden
ly overcome by weariness, brought on, she thought, by her sustained cheerfulness over the past few hours. If Leo hadn’t left when he had, she would not have looked so bleak and her mother would not have felt compelled to remove them both to the seaside, and Lady Penge would perhaps still be languishing in her bed for half the day, instead of being up and about, quite merrily engaged with life. Tara tried very hard to be pleased that things had worked out as they had, but suddenly a great wave of longing for Leo came over her. Perhaps she would have been quite taken by Mark if she had met him first, but she hadn’t and her heart still seemed to be firmly in Leo’s custody.

  ‘Mr Mark,’ you have a visitor, Leo heard the maid say from the other side of the parlour door. When he had been told the family were out for the evening, he had decided to wait in for them and had idled away the time reading a book about seabirds. Perhaps Mark would claim that he and Tara had been bird watching when they took their intimate, unchaperoned stroll down below the Canford Cliffs.

  ‘Leo, old chap, this is a surprise,’ Mark said, entering the room. ‘I thought you had shunned all society for art. I’m sorry I wasn’t home to receive you but unfortunately you chose and evening when I had a dinner engagement to emerge from your hermit’s shack on the mountain.’

  ‘It’s not a shack,’ Leo growled, looking at Mark through narrowed eyes, trying to decide if his ruddy complexion was a result of wine drunk with dinner or if it owed something to a smear of rouge or paint transferred in a moment of intimacy with Tara.

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Mark said placatingly. ‘It’s just a figure of speech. Now, may I offer you some refreshment?’

  As Mark poured him a generous measure of brandy Leo eyed him closely. Although it was late his cousin appeared full of energy and was even humming under his breath as might a man in love. ‘Were you out to dinner with anyone I know?’ he asked, trying to sound casual.

  ‘Quite possibly,’ Mark said, handing him his glass. ‘Lady Penge and her daughter Tara. Lady Tara is to be found in London every spring, perhaps you have come across her?’

  Leo had not expected Mark to be quite so disarmingly honest, yet why should he think he had anything to hide? He took his time sipping his drink while he formulated his answer. He had no intention of telling Mark anything about his relationship with Tara, but it would not do to be caught in any kind of a lie. ‘Yes, I know her,’ he said. ‘I painted her portrait for one of her admirers not so long ago.’ He was pleased with the way he had framed that little piece of information. If Mark thought he was just one of many men smitten with Tara he might drop any ideas he had about her. ‘Is she a close friend of yours?’ he asked.

  An alarmingly misty smile stole over Mark’s face. ‘I don’t know her terribly well,’ he said. ‘But sometimes it feels as if we’ve known each other forever. She is so easy to converse with, in fact we never stop talking.’ Leo listened with mounting dismay, it sounded disturbingly as if Tara had simply transferred all her affection towards him onto Mark. He recalled the thought that had crossed his mind when he had first arrived on his cousin’s doorstep - he’d thought Tara would like Mark and find his temperament considerably easier to deal with than his own, he’d just never expected them to meet. The only saving grace in Mark’s words was his claim that all he and Tara did was talk. The thought of his cousin even beginning to take the liberties he had with Tara was intolerable.

  ‘Are you all right, old chap?’ Mark asked. ‘You look as dark as a thundercloud.’

  ‘You should be wary of Lady Tara,’ Leo growled. ‘She toys with men’s affections.’ That wasn’t perhaps strictly true, Leo thought guiltily as he recalled the lengths Tara had gone to in trying to forestall Rodney’s proposal, but warning Mark off was the best thing for both of them.

  Mark laughed disbelievingly. ‘Perhaps she does that in town,’ he said, ‘but I haven’t seen anything such thing down here.’

  Mark was quite taken with Tara, Leo saw with a kind of horrified gloom. He wasn’t going to listen to anything Leo said. He tried one last attempt at reason. ‘Lady Tara has a string of gentleman friends,’ he said. ‘Rodney Hulme, the chap your sister’s friend has just got engaged to, my friend Freddie Palmer whom you’ve met, and a wretched little Frenchman called Philippe la Monte. She isn’t very discerning.’

  ‘As you’ve decided to come out of your cave, perhaps you’d like to grace us with your presence at the little party my mother is holding on Saturday evening,’ Mark said, apparently quite unmoved.

  ‘Have you invited many people?’ Leo asked, both hoping and dreading to hear that the Penges were on the guest list.

  ‘A couple of dozen,’ Mark said. ‘It’s just a small crowd. Lady Tara will be here, so there will be at least one person you know outside of the family, although it doesn’t sound as if you like her very much.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ Leo muttered. If he couldn’t persuade Mark to stay away from Tara perhaps he could warn Tara off his cousin. He decided not to examine his motives too closely. He swirled the remaining brandy in his glass, drained it and stood up. ‘I must be going. I’ll see you on Saturday night.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Mark said, rising also and seeing him to the door. ‘Oh, I almost forgot, it’s a good thing you stopped in, there’s a letter for you. It was forwarded here from your London address.’

  Although he couldn’t recall seeing anything she’d written, Leo knew at once from the handwriting that the missive was from Tara. Fighting back the impulse to rip it open and read it right now in Mark’s front hall, he took the letter and stuffed it into his coat pocket. Whatever Tara had to say he would rather learn in private.

  Leo rode swiftly home, every rustle the thin letter made seeming to speak to him. He forced himself to see to his horse first, then he went inside, lit a lamp and threw himself down on his bed to read the letter.

  It was so short he’d read it twice in less than a minute, then he crumpled it up in anger and was about to fling it into the darkened hearth but instead he unfolded it and read it one more time. Did Tara really call that an apology? It was a lecture on pride and stubbornness. Her remarks on his setting such store on a man earning an honest living cut deeply, he had indeed said that La Monte should not have too much pride to become a fishmonger, or some such thing. But it was outrageous for her to compare him to that lazy frog. Leo had a profession, one which he had worked day and night to build over the last few years, he did not need to resort to common farm work to support himself. Then there was her last sentence which left him in the greatest turmoil of all. I hope you take this apology in the spirit in which it is intended, and that we can resume our friendship where we left off. What on earth did she mean by that? Did she want to further their physical relationship? Did she in fact want them to become lovers? The very thought stirred him deeply but pride would not let him seriously consider such a thing. With Tara he wanted all or nothing.

  Clothes, Tara, decided, were the best way to get herself into the proper mood for a party. Betty had packed for her and Tara had given her no instructions, being unable to summon any interest in her wardrobe, feeling that all she really wanted to wear was mourning black. But Betty had been her maid for five years, ever since her come out, and apparently she had formed her own ideas on what sort of apparel Tara would need for a quiet few weeks by the sea. Throwing open her wardrobe Tara found silk, satin and velvet evening wear, with matching shoes and boots stored neatly on a little rack below. Her eye was drawn to a deep purple silk under dress which went with a paler mauve overdress in the sheerest of silk and a pair of matching half boots which completed the look. The cut was more modest than what she usually wore in London, which explained why she had not worn it recently, but here in the quieter society of Bournemouth she thought it might be more appropriate, and there was no denying that the fabric was fabulous.

  She let Betty dress her and then looked in the mirror and found herself smiling at her reflection in delight. The neckline might be higher than she was used to but the
fabric was so fine that it clung to her every curve revealing her voluptuousness despite the modesty of the cut. ‘There’s some violets out the back, Lady Tara,’ Betty said. ‘Shall I dress your hair with those?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tara said firmly. ‘That is an excellent idea.’

  ‘We appear to be rather late,’ Lady Penge said disapprovingly as she and Tara climbed out of their carriage.

  Tara laughed, ‘Not at all, it is much worse to be early. I expect their closest friends will already be here, but we will by no means be the last guests to arrive.’ Her mother, she reflected, had had little chance to socialize since her father died, really this month in Bournemouth was for the best. Perhaps she might also persuade her to join her in London for the season next year. Immediately Tara’s mind shied away from that idea. London next year, without Leo, did not bear thinking about. She ought to go to Paris instead, but there would be even less opportunity for a chance meeting with him there.

  ‘Did a goose walk over your grave?’ Lady Penge asked and Tara realized she had shivered. She was saved from having to answer by the Reeves’ footman who opened the front door.

  Tara quickly found she was right. A handful of people were in the parlour. The double doors leading to the dining room had been opened and the table moved to one side to create additional space. Clearly more people were expected. A quartet played softly at the far end of the dining room, listened to by a small audience of two; Mark’s sister Caroline and a gentleman.

  Mark and his parents came forward to greet them warmly. As Mark took Tara’s hand and kissed it she saw Mrs Reeves’ eyes light up at the sight of her old friend. Then she nearly snatched her hand away. Mark’s kiss was perfectly ordinary, almost perfunctory, his lips coolly inoffensive on the back of her hand but it felt so wrong to be touched by any man other than Leo. She stopped herself from giving such insult just in time but found Mark looking at her a little oddly.