Mayfair Rebel

by Mayfair Rebel (retail) (epub)

  ‘It’s all right for you, May, you’ll have all that money, but Henry only has three hundred a year, and Mamma says Papa will cut me off without a penny if I marry him.’

  Prudence, or Lady Bertram, had prevailed, and three months later Phyllis had married Lord Poole’s eldest son, at whom she’d always poked fun because he had spots and could talk of nothing but his dogs. Phyllis never giggled now, May noticed; she only hoped she had come to like dogs.

  As these thoughts flitted through her mind the exchange of meaningless platitudes continued to flow inexorably on until the allotted time of the call was up. Lady Clarence’s sense of timing had always been a source of wonderment to her daughters: there was no covert glance at her watch, but May knew from careful checks kept by Emily and herself in the past that exactly fifteen minutes would have elapsed between her seating herself and her rising, and this without any awkward break in the conversation. May could only marvel at the sense of discipline which had brought such precision and skill to the pointless ritual of calling. She and Emily had speculated that when other women were relaxing in their boudoirs idly turning the pages of the latest issue of ‘The Lady’s Realm’, Lady Clarence must have been sitting, upright on a chair, watch in hand, learning how to time herself to exactly fifteen minutes.

  Now, as in some carefully rehearsed ballet, the three women rose as one; Lady Clarence and Lady Bertram touched hands again; May moved forward and took her hostess’ soft fingers, squeezing them firmly this time – third Season, indeed, and what of poor Phyllis – noting with pleasure her Ladyship’s faint moue of distaste. Lady Bertram advanced with her guests the regulation one step towards the door, now held open by the footman; May followed her step-mother out, down the staircase and into the hall, where there was only the briefest of pauses while Lady Clarence with practised ease produced her husband’s cards from somewhere about her person and dropped them onto the waiting table. Then they were through the wide front doorway, out into the pulsating heat of the afternoon and back inside the stuffy brougham.

  As soon as James had shut the door Lady Clarence spoke in her low but clear tones.

  ‘May, I thought you had got over that childish habit of shaking hands too energetically.’

  May retorted, ‘I suppose I should have done, by my third Season!’

  Lady Clarence frowned.

  ‘It is not for you to question the words of your elders. Besides, it is entirely your own decision that you are still unmarried at twenty-one. Your father has had offers for your hand, some of them eminently suitable. It is time you realised the responsibilities of a girl in your position.’

  May made no reply: her thoughts were mutinous. What was the point, married or not, of a lifetime spent paying calls and attending receptions and never saying what you really thought and having to spend hours dressing and undressing and dressing again every day because one had a position in Society and that was how one filled it? At least men could go off and join the Army or sit in Parliament in between the boring dinner parties. Dinner parties, thought May, with a mounting sense of grievance, where you hardly had time to enjoy the food because you had to make polite conversation first with your neighbour on the right, and then, when the courses changed, with your left-hand neighbour, even if you hadn’t the slightest interest in him or he in you.

  There was a loud shout outside and the brougham jolted to a sudden halt. May defied Lady Clarence’s stony looks to peer out of the window. A large wagon passed too close to the off-side and May heard a volley of curses. But their carriage merely jerked forward again and resumed its sedate clip-clop to the Countess of Woodbridge’s London home. Disappointed, May sat back again and returned to her thoughts.

  More cheerfully now she recollected that no one could bully her to marry money, like poor Phyllis Ainsley, the future Lady Poole. Either on marriage or at the age of twenty-five she would come into the control not only of her dead mother’s considerable personal fortune, but also a three-quarter share of the income from one of the most profitable shipyards in Britain; then she could do exactly as she pleased. But could she, even then? With another plunge of her spirits May realised that she did not know one spinster, wealthy or otherwise, who was not as closely bound into the rules of Society as her step-mother; and certainly no young woman of her class could set up an independent establishment while she had a family and connections alive; and relatives of the ancient line of Winton were spread like a web all over East Anglia.

  Perhaps she could go abroad? May’s one stay on the Riviera had been exciting at first, but Lady Clarence had soon met like-minded companions, and she and her ilk had then imposed their own constricting pattern. Even the forbidden territory of the Casino soon palled, according to Archie.

  ‘Lots of old fogies sitting round a table, eyes glued to the black and the red; you wouldn’t like it May, no real action, not your style at all.’ Nevertheless he’d seemed to spend quite a few evenings there, and May had had to beg ten pounds ‘for trinkets’ off her surprised father on Archie’s behalf. May cheered up slightly, remembering that Archie had said he would be going with them to Lady Hindlesham’s ball this evening.

  She was even more cheered later when it became apparent from certain low-voiced utterances passing between Lady Clarence and her hostess at their next port of call that Lady Hindlesham’s was not quite the kind of house to which Lady Clarence would normally choose to take her daughter. May was rather puzzled by this, since she had heard Lord Hindlesham spoken of with respect – and why, if Lady Clarence had scruples, were they going there at all? But all became clear as they were leaving. Lady Woodbridge turned kindly to May.

  ‘I am so pleased to have met you, my dear. I trust that you will allow me to present my son to you this evening, he is just come down from Oxford. I don’t believe you have made his acquaintance before.’

  May indicated the correct degree of pleasure at this suggestion, but Lady Clarence’s obviously genuine smile of approval did not bode well for the probable liveliness of Lord Woodbridge’s heir. However, May was intrigued, and the prospect of the evening’s entertainment began to hold more interest for her.

  Chapter Two

  The hour dedicated to afternoon tea was over; the fragile porcelain cups had been removed and the equally brittle conversation had ceased. Lady Clarence was resting in her boudoir to prepare herself for the rigours of an evening’s chaperonage, and May had come up to her bedroom. She had pulled her chair close to the open window, but the quiet square in front of the Winton’s London house offered little in the way of distraction, so she was desultorily turning the pages of a novel.

  Even the knowledge that she would certainly incur Lady Clarence’s displeasure if the latter discovered that she was reading Miss Cholmondeley’s Red Pottage failed to arouse May’s enthusiasm this afternoon. Shallow and unattractive as the character of Lady Newhaven was, May still felt a definite sympathy for her in her lapse into marital infidelity after ten long years of London Seasons.

  In any case, May was missing Emily. Her interest in reading novels needed the stimulus of discussion: not about the subtleties of literary style, but on the endless question of what the characters actually did every day between their appearances in the plot, and, even more engrossing, after the book had ended.

  May was constantly fascinated by the thought of other people’s lives. She had spent her early childhood eluding Nurse and trying to insinuate herself into the kitchen quarters or the stable yard in a determined effort to find out exactly how things were done. The stables had been further away, and the head groom more patient than the short-tempered cook, so May knew more about cleaning tack and mucking out horses than she did about cooking; though a kindly scullery maid had one day initiated her into the mysteries of drawing poultry, and even allowed her to disembowl one herself. Unfortunately, May had been caught red-handed by perspiring Nurse, her clean pinafore liberally bespattered with chicken’s blood; but she had felt the resulting tirade well worth the experience, and
had insisted defiantly throughout the following week that she really preferred her bread without butter.

  Her father’s remarriage had changed all that. Lady Clarence had imported a succession of stern-visaged and firm-handed governesses, and May’s visits to scullery and stable yard became few and far between and clearly paid for in long lists of the most irregular German verbs. Still, Lady Clarence had not come into the household alone; she had brought with her Emily. With Emily as a constant companion it had been possible to substitute talk of action for the activity itself. Long whispered tales of adventurous heroines who made their way from one end of the country to the other had passed between their beds in the old night nursery, and later enlivened their interminable perambulations through London Parks when they had been dragged unwillingly from Allingham Place or Stemhalton up to Town.

  May stared at her novel again. What exactly had Rachel West done to support herself in her years of poverty? Vague hints of typewriting were all that could be gleaned; and then, when restored by her fortunate inheritance to London Society, what exactly had she done when she made those tantalisingly brief visits to the East End, to relieve the poor? What was it like to be ‘poor’ anyway – really poor, that is? May tried to visualise the practical details but failed. She tossed the book to one side in exasperation and rang for her maid.

  Bella tapped lightly at the door and came in.

  ‘Good evening, Miss May.’

  She was too well-trained to allow more than a faint hint of a question to show on her face, though May knew it was unusually early for her to start dressing; she generally put this off until the last moment, so that Fenton would arrive at the door: ‘Lady Clarence wishes to know if Miss May is quite ready?’ And then there would be a flurry of pearls and hairpins as last-minute adjustments were made.

  ‘Good evening, Bella. Oh, Bella, I’m so bored! I wish we were going down to Allingham tomorrow – at least I can go out for a walk on my own there!’

  For a moment Bella looked hurt, and May realised she had been tactless.

  ‘Bella, I didn’t mean that, exactly. It’s not that I don’t like you coming with me, it’s just that there’s nowhere to go in Town. Only boring shops and dress-makers and milliners; and never going anywhere without Lady Clarence saying I can, and wanting to know exactly where I’m going, and how long for – then when we get back she insists on knowing whom I saw on the way. I’m surprised she doesn’t make us count every cab and omnibus that went past so that she can check on our route!’

  Bella moved across to the adjoining bathroom and turned on the taps.

  ‘It’s just her way, Miss May, you know that. Besides, young ladies have to be protected, especially in London.’

  ‘Oh come on, Bella, there aren’t villainous men in big floppy hats hiding round every corner, waiting to seize hold of me and drag me off to, to – to an opium den!’ May started to laugh. ‘I wish there were, I’d rush out and offer to go, this very minute, just for something different to do.’

  Bella smiled, but shook her head.

  ‘You know it’s not that, Miss May, it’s your reputation. What would people think if they saw you out in the street unaccompanied?’

  May was silenced. She knew exactly what people would think because she had heard Lady Clarence on the subject on more than one occasion. When Lady Clarence expressed herself on such a matter it was with a clarity and precision which left no room for argument; though May, slow to realise when she was beaten, had frequently tried to find some.

  Opening the door of the wardrobe Bella indicated a full-skirted dress of pale pink soie-de-Chine.

  ‘Lady Clarence suggested the shell pink for this evening, Miss May. Will that be satisfactory?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  The apparently endless procession of lace, lawn and silk undergarments appeared from the drawers of the mahogany chest and were laid in a fluffy array on the blue satin bedspread. Bella closed the light curtains and May stood up, went over to the bed and waited to be unhooked. Bella drew her afternoon dress over her head, loosened her petticoats for May to step out of, and then unlaced her corset. Reduced to her light shift and the silken wrapper Bella had slipped over her shoulders May moved towards the bathroom. Bella was there before her, turning off the taps, always timed to have filled the bath at the precise moment that May was undressed. Bella shut the door behind her and went back to her preparations.

  May lay back in the bath and tried to float; wondering if Lady Clarence would let her go to the Bath Club the following morning. She had nearly succeeded in swimming a full length underwater, and Miss Lewin had promised to practise the double somersault with her next time she came. She slid down in the bath, raised herself on her elbows and stretched her long legs up to see if she could touch the edge of the lampshade with her toes. She had almost done it when her elbow slipped against the soap and she fell back with a resounding bang and sent the water fountaining up before it cascaded over the edge of the bath and onto the floor.

  ‘Miss May, are you all right?’ She heard Bella’s anxious voice from the other side of the door.

  ‘Yes, Bella, I just slipped as I was getting out.’ May hastily leapt onto the sodden rug and began to towel herself vigorously. She threw on the clean shift which Bella had put ready, dragged her wrapper round her and squelched out. Bella, going in to empty the bath, stared at the floor then looked reproachfully at May.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bella. Have you got your feet wet? I nearly touched the shade with my toes!’

  ‘I’ll ring for Mabel to clear it up. Come along Miss May, you spent too long in the bath. Miss Fenton will be here in a minute.’

  By the time May had her camisole on, the housemaid had arrived with her mop and bucket. May spoke to her over her shoulder as Bella arranged her petticoats.

  ‘How is your brother, Mabel? Bella said he’s getting married. Is she someone you know?’

  ‘No, Miss May. She’s in service over Beccles way. Me Mam wrote she’s a pert little thing with red hair. But then, me Mam always wanted him to marry Molly Sugden, her who works for the schoolmaster in the village.’

  May automatically shook out her flounces.

  ‘I think I know who you mean – she takes the children out, doesn’t she? A dark girl with rather a low forehead.’

  ‘And her chin sticks out.’ Mabel emerged from the bathroom with her bucket. ‘Our Tom said he’d as soon marry a witch! She’s all right, Molly, and a dab hand with the pastry, but you know what men are, they’re only interested in looks before they’re married.’

  ‘Oh well, let’s hope the redhead can make pastry, too. Have they decided when it’s to be?’

  ‘Not for ages yet, Miss May, they want to put a bit by for furniture and things first.’

  ‘Then perhaps your mother will have time to come round, then. Thank you, Mabel, I hope I haven’t held you up.’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice, thank you, Miss May.’

  The door closed with a gentle click. May turned back to Bella, now ready with the ball dress in her arms. It slipped smoothly over May’s golden head and fell in a silken swirl to the floor. Layer upon soft layer rustled gently as she moved towards the dressing table. Bella gazed with pride at the reflection: glowing pink shoulders rose from the chemisette of delicate ruched tulle, arranged so as to give a discreet emphasis to the roundness of her full breasts above her narrow waist. But May scarcely glanced in the mirror as she sat down and waited for her hair to be attended to.

  Bella was a swift, deft worker, and May’s hair was too long and thick to need the cunning addition of pads and wires. The elaborate coils and swirls were soon arranged and secured with invisible underpinnings; a circlet of the same small rosebuds as those Bella had sewn onto the flounces of her skirt was placed on her shining hair, and a single string of pearls was being clasped round May’s slender neck when the expected summons came. At the call, ‘Come in,’ Fenton’s narrow face appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Lady Clarence w
ishes to know whether Miss May is ready yet?’

  ‘Of course, Miss Fenton; quite ready.’ Bella’s tone was surprised.

  May caught her own maid’s eye in the mirror and lowered one eyelid in a barely perceptible wink.

  * * *

  May gathered her full skirts in her left hand, and, barely touching the banister as she went, ran down the stairs to the first floor hall. Here she adopted a more decorous pace as she approached the drawing room, but her step-mother had not yet come down, and she found her father alone, reading the ‘Morning Post’. As he rose on her entrance she noticed that he was wearing full evening dress. He gazed at her affectionately.

  ‘My dear, you look a picture!’

  ‘And you look very elegant, Papa.’ She moved across to kiss his check. ‘I didn’t know you were escorting us tonight.’

  A slightly hangdog look passed over Lord Clarence Winton’s handsome features.

  ‘Your Mamma particularly requested it.’

  May carefully spread out her skirts as she sat down.

  ‘I think she does not altogether approve of Lady Hindlesham, Papa; why is that?’

  ‘And I think she would not at all approve of my telling you the reason, Miss.’ But his smile was indulgent.

  ‘Oh, Papa, surely…’

  The door opened, and Lady Clarence, in her evening finery, glided through. Father and daughter fell silent. Lady Clarence looked searchingly from one to the other, then smiled.

  ‘You look charming, May. Bella has turned you out very nicely.’