Shadows in the Grass

by Beverley Harper

  The folly of bedding mother and daughter simultaneously was exacerbated by several complicated issues. Lorna was betrothed to another. Even if she hadn’t been, Dallas knew that Alison would never allow him to marry her daughter. Jealousy aside, the intricate and rigid rules that governed their highly class-conscious society meant that Dallas would be considered unsuitable as a marriage partner for Lorna.

  Realising he was damned whichever way he turned, and cursing himself for being a weak fool, Dallas developed a head-in-the-sand approach to the problem, telling himself everything would work out for the best. Just how, he had no idea.

  Dallas was the fourth son of the Earl and Countess of Dalrymple. As such, his future prospects were not exactly assured.

  Custom decreed that the first-born son, Thomas, or Viscount Gilmerton since he was entitled to use his father’s secondary title, would inherit everything – estates, country houses, town houses and social standing. Married with two children, Thomas stoically plodded his way towards old age and continuance of the Dalrymple family tradition.

  A royal commission in the Scots Guards had been bought for Boyd, the second-born. To augment a meagre pay, his parents bestowed a generous stipend which kept him comfortable. While Boyd would not be considered eligible to marry daughters of the peerage, not socially desirable ones anyway, his lineage and army rank ensured that any future wife would at least be the daughter of a baronet or knight.

  The third son had turned out to be a gentle, dreamy young man who had gone willingly into the church. Glendon had no ambitions other than to serve God. He was perfectly happy as a vicar, conducting services, tending the sick, performing his duties at christenings, weddings and funerals. He lived well enough on local tithes – one-tenth of the money earned by parishioners – and had access to the glebe, the parish farmlands on which he could grow his own crops or raise livestock.

  To Dallas, Glendon was something of an enigma. That he genuinely cared for the well-being of those less fortunate than himself was in no doubt. Right from the time he was old enough to realise that social injustice and gender went hand in hand, he held genuine and deeply religious beliefs that it would only be a matter of time before inequality of this nature was eradicated. Yet he appeared actually to dislike women and often made uncharitable comments about them. Despite this, he was engaged to the impoverished and straitlaced niece of the bishop in his diocese. She was seven years Glendon’s senior, looked, Dallas once confided to Boyd, rather like a starving sheep, and had no personality at all as far as Dallas could see. But her family connections were impeccable.

  Of his three brothers, Dallas remained closest to Boyd. Thomas was stuffy and pompous and hardly ever ventured away from the family estates in Tayside and Strathclyde. Glendon, with his love of poetry and close relationship with one of the family retainers, left Dallas filled with an urge to frogmarch him off to a brothel.

  There was one sister, Charlotte, for whom Dallas had always felt a protective affection, but being four years younger, and having only just come out, he still saw her as a child.

  Of the five Acheson offspring, it was usually Dallas who incurred their father’s disapproval. When Nanny’s shrieking and dishevelled form burst from her room gibbering about a toad in the bed, all family eyes turned to Dallas. It came as no real surprise to Lord Dalrymple when his youngest son was nearly sent down from Eton for an innovative prank involving a chamber-pot, a disgusting and foul-smelling object collected from the Head’s golden retriever, and a visiting dignitary. It wasn’t the joke that infuriated Lord Dalrymple – indeed, when told of it he shut himself in his study for several minutes to control an hysterical urge to giggle – it was his son’s apparent lack of concern that the school’s very important visitor had been so unimpressed by the mischief that he’d withdrawn his considerable financial support to the institution. Dallas was suspended for the rest of that term.

  Far from being contrite, Dallas was delighted. As punishment went, he couldn’t think of anything more splendid. Three weeks’ extra holiday was not to be sneezed at. But Lord Dalrymple punished his wayward son by annexing his services to the head gardener. This was not only for the three weeks of suspension either. Dallas toiled in the great outdoors for his entire summer holidays.

  He seemed to skitter from one diabolical disaster to another. What Dallas perceived as a lark usually backfired with calamitous results. Who else, on building a small fire to toast marshmallows, could burn down an entire barn? Who else, on burrowing below the retaining wall of an ornamental pond to build a secret cave, could hit a weak spot and drain all the water, killing his mother’s precious goldfish? Dallas sometimes wondered why these things only ever happened to him.

  The sole member of his immediate family to whom he was really close remained his mother. While she sometimes despaired of her youngest son’s escapades, she at least seemed to understand that he never meant harm. As Dallas grew older the confidences he shared with her invariably became more guarded; nonetheless, he knew that a special bond still existed between them. Personal matters were not discussed any more but it was with his mother that he often addressed the problem of what to do with his life. A military career or the clergy held no appeal whatsoever.

  ‘Marry an estate,’ Lady Pamela Dalrymple advised succinctly and seriously on more than one occasion.

  It was common enough practice. Younger sons of the peerage, set to inherit little but the courtesy title ‘Lord’, married wealthy, titled, often widowed ladies in order to gain control of everything they owned. The only trouble with that was, as a general rule, eligible women of rank and wealth only became available for the very good reason that they were possessed of a difficult personality, plain appearance, bad reputation, or were over-the-hill. Some even enjoyed a combination thereof. Dallas simply wasn’t interested.

  ‘Banking,’ he said gloomily when all other possibilities seemed unlikely.

  ‘Go into trade? Heavens no!’ his mother would exclaim. ‘How frightfully vulgar.’

  So Dallas did nothing and lived, as did many a young man or woman from the privileged class, spending his days indulging in one social activity after another.

  During the 1871 London season fate finally took a hand. It was then that Dallas was diverted by Lady Alison de Iongh and bewitched by her daughter, Lorna.

  Lady de Iongh seduced the good-looking young man on a train heading north from London.

  Lorna de Iongh willingly gave up her virginity to him two months later, just after her seventeenth birthday.

  TWO

  The London season brought together anyone who was anyone and a few with enough new money and ambitions to become someone. Each year around fifteen hundred families headed from country estates for their residences in the West End. Some arrived as early as Christmas, especially the families of Members of Parliament, but the season proper only began after Easter.

  Dallas and his sister, Charlotte, who was coming out that year, journeyed with the Earl and Countess of Dalrymple by rail early in April. It was a raw day: the sky promised late snow, or at least rain squalls, as persistent easterly winds funnelled cold air off the North Sea up the Firth of Forth. The sole method of heating their first-class carriage was metal foot warmers filled with hot water by a porter. Dressed for the cold in furs and snuggled under heavy woollen blankets, the family was tolerably comfortable.

  This was the third time Dallas had made the trip from Edinburgh to London by train. He did not particularly enjoy the method of travel. There was no passageway connecting the carriages. Once in, one stayed in. No illumination – candles had to be brought from home, as did food since there were no facilities providing sustenance.

  Worst of all, no toilets. Some women, especially if travelling in the exclusive company of others of their sex, carried a chamber-pot for emergencies, hidden discreetly in a basket. Men could purchase a long tube which they strapped down one leg and concealed under their trousers. Like most, Lord Dalrymple and his family found these soluti
ons highly unsatisfactory and preferred to wait until the train stopped at a station, then, along with everyone else, make an undignified rush for the public toilets.

  To amuse themselves, the family alternated between reading and playing cards. Charlotte chattered incessantly about coming out. It was an exciting time for a girl who grew up restrained by the shelter of class and convention. This season she could enter society, enjoy the attentions of young gentlemen, dress like a lady and be treated as a grown-up. Her best friend, the Lady Lorna de Iongh, was also coming out and Dallas idly wondered what society would make of the two of them.

  Charlotte was excitable and easily led by Lorna who, it sometimes seemed to Dallas and everyone else who knew her, went out of her way to shock. When Lorna was six she kept a collection of live snails in her bedchamber and would hold regular race meetings on the outcome of which her friends were coerced into betting pocket money. When this practice came to the attention of her mother, it was stopped. The reason given was that it was unbecoming behaviour for a young lady.

  Lorna, who regularly complained to Dallas about inequality between boys and girls – ‘Why can’t I climb trees if boys can?’ or ‘Why must I sit with my knees pressed together if boys don’t?’ –gave vent in her usual forthright manner. ‘Why is it unladylike? I’m allowed to sit on the floor to play cards. My knees were covered.’

  At ten, Dallas didn’t know the answer, but he took a wild guess. ‘You were holding a purse on the races.’

  Lorna tossed her head. ‘So what? You still couldn’t see my knees,’ and she hauled up her skirts to show him two bony little lumps which she firmly believed were responsible for the ban.

  Staring at them, Dallas could see no good reason why they might be considered unladylike. At that moment Lorna’s nanny came into the room. The resultant fuss was mainly caused by a highly embellished account of the event from Nanny Beth. Lorna was dragged off home, rolling her eyes in defiance. Dallas didn’t understand what he’d done that was supposed to be so awful, and neither he nor Lorna could appreciate the reason given as to why they were chaperoned for months afterwards – ‘It’s for your own good.’

  As they grew older, they often gravitated together to complain when they felt punishment for a supposed breach of good behaviour was too strict. They were bound in friendship by their inability to conform.

  When Dallas reached puberty, and for no reason he could think of, his mother informed him that, ‘for his own good’ he and Lorna would, once again, be chaperoned. He put it down to one of the many confusing rules and regulations of life, never once suspecting that the day he was caught looking at Lorna’s knees was the reason. The ever-present Nanny Beth was a challenge. Dallas and Lorna often amused themselves devising and executing ways to escape her attention. Eventually, their parents came to accept that the two were firm friends, nothing more, and allowed them reasonable freedom together.

  And now, along with his sister, the little tomboy friend of his childhood would be coming out. God help the young suitors, Dallas thought. Particularly Lorna’s.

  The journey took twelve hours. When the train eventually reached London they were stiff and cold, though in very good condition compared with the frozen, sneezing and sodden third-class passengers who had made the journey in open trucks. It was a relief to return to the familiar, to have their coachman meet the train and turn the matter of their considerable luggage over to two grooms and a like number of footmen. The luggage travelled in one brougham, the family boarded a second.

  ‘Nearly there, dears.’ Lady Dalrymple yawned delicately, as the carriage set off. ‘I can’t wait to stretch my legs.’

  Their town house was on Park Lane, the most fashionable part of London’s West End. Years earlier, the earl’s father had purchased another residence next door and, instead of keeping it a high, narrow building like most, combined the two houses making the Dalrymple address quite exclusive. The kitchen, scullery and laundry, as well as the cook’s, housekeeper’s and butler’s quarters, lay below ground, in the basement. At street level were an imposing wood-panelled entrance hall, dining and drawing rooms and a glassed conservatory that spanned the back of both original houses. Above them, a billiard room, library and gallery. The second floor comprised three large bedrooms, with four more on the third. Other servants and storage took up the fourth floor and attics.

  Despite their late arrival – it was nearly midnight when they drew up outside the house – the full complement of servants lined the entrance hall waiting to greet the family. Cook had a late supper prepared and hot water was ready to take upstairs so that any who wished to bathe could do so. Lady Pamela’s personal maid – a young French girl of good breeding, exceptional prettiness and lively personality – waited to attend to her ladyship’s luggage. The earl’s valet was at the ready for his lordship. A housemaid would do likewise for Dallas, and his sister’s governess waited for Charlotte.

  Having not seen the London staff for seven months, proper greetings for the privileged, more senior, servants and gracious acknowledgment of the others had to be undertaken. Lady Pamela was particularly adept at praise, appreciation and gentle reprimand, managing to bolster egos as she instilled a desire to do better in future, without unbalancing the precarious pecking order so important in keeping the household running smoothly and trouble free.

  It was gone two in the morning before any of the family could retire.

  So began the season. Dallas would spend most mornings riding in Hyde Park, then home for a late breakfast. Afternoons and evenings would consist of one social engagement after another. Lunch at his club, calling on friends, dinners, soirees, the opera, concerts, art exhibitions, dances and various balls, the Derby and Ascot, Henley Regatta, cricket matches between Oxford and Cambridge or Eton and Harrow, even visits to Regent Street to meet unmarried ladies of a more sexually forthcoming persuasion than those young chaperoned girls whose mothers had entered into the marriage market.

  His path crossed with that of the de Ionghs many times. Lady de Iongh and his mother knew each other well, although Lady Dalrymple sometimes intimated that Alison was, on occasions, ‘a trifle too gay’, meaning, as far as Dallas could establish, flirtatious. Dallas himself was friends with Charles, Lorna’s brother. And the two earls were acquaintances.

  After Charlotte and Lorna had been formally presented to Queen Victoria at St James’s Palace, they were officially admitted into society. Overnight, both girls became young ladies and, as such, could welcome the attentions of potential suitors.

  The first time Dallas saw Lorna after her coming out he could scarcely believe how she had changed. The occasion was a ball, hosted by his parents – or more specifically, his mother. Her main objective was to introduce Charlotte to eligible young men. Invitations had gone out a month earlier and the Park Lane house turned inside out and upside down for the event. The concertina doors between the first-floor billiard room and gallery had been pushed back, making two areas into one large ballroom. Lord Dalrymple’s library on that floor was transformed into a refreshment room. An orchestra – cornet, piano, violin and cello – were in one corner of the ballroom, discreetly screened behind a veritable forest of indoor plants.

  At street level, the dining room was ready to feed more than two hundred while one drawing room had been turned into a card-playing area for those older guests who preferred whist, loo, vingt-et-un or speculation to the hurly-burly of dancing. Two bedrooms on the second floor served as cloakrooms.

  Lady Pamela and Charlotte had spent weeks planning the menu, decorations, music and their own costumes. Dallas and his father were pleased to make themselves scarce. ‘Don’t know why all the fuss,’ the earl grumbled. ‘Anyone with half an eye can see that young de Iongh is besotted.’

  Dallas was well aware of Charles de Iongh’s interest in his sister. It had been there for years, way before etiquette allowed. Now that she had come out, Charles was free to declare his feelings. In fact, he envied his friend. As an only son Charl
es’s inheritance was assured, making him highly acceptable to ambitious mothers not shy in pushing their daughters his way. Charles could have his pick. Not that he wanted it. Charlotte was the one. His only anxiety was whether she would accept him.

  At eight o’clock on the night of the ball, Dallas, resplendent in formal evening wear, and Charlotte, dazzling in white and diamonds, were standing at the entrance with their parents to welcome guests. The de Iongh family, like most, were fashionably late.

  Lady Alison pressed a cool cheek to Dallas’s and murmured, ‘How handsome you look.’

  Dallas, who had known the countess for years, read no innuendo into her words. She was not much younger than his own mother and part of a different generation.

  As was the custom, most women in the room wore white. Lorna looked bewitching. Her wild blonde curls had been tamed, swept up and caught with an intricate weaving into some kind of headpiece. A band of deep green velvet encircled her neck, a sprinkling of seed pearls sewn onto it not detracting in any way from pale, soft skin. Small emeralds and diamonds dangled from her ears.

  Good Lord! Dallas thought, almost staring. What’s happened to her?

  Then she was in front of him, haughty and composed. ‘Good evening, Lord Acheson.’

  Etiquette decreed that he return the greeting, bow over her hand and turn to the next guest. Instead, he leaned forward and whispered, ‘Is that really you?’

  The old Lorna – the child of a few weeks ago –would have responded with a grin and perhaps a few cheeky words. The new Lorna – the young lady who had been instructed in the ways of decorum required from the instant she came out – lowered long blonde lashes over cool grey eyes, fluttered her fan and offered languid fingertips. Dallas was confused as he bowed over her hand. Why was his heart suddenly hammering? Surely a short ceremony and a few words from the queen couldn’t have brought about such a change. This was the little grub who had pelted him with horse manure only last year. There was no sign of that child now. Where had she gone?