Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus (51 page)

He endowed Lady George’s niece, Mary, with all the beauty and charms of perfect womanhood. He would marry her, he would invite Ginny to the wedding, and he would smile into her empty eyes and tell her how happy he was. He might make some laughing little reference to their time at the inn to show her that it had meant nothing to him.

The days before the ball passed quickly and the evening of the great event soon arrived. He dressed with unusual care, pulling his white gloves over his hands, which were callused like a laborers’ by the hard work during the winter and early spring.

His servants smiled their approval to see their master once more behaving as fitted his position in life instead of grubbing among the turnips.

His new Lanchester purred along the lanes in the twilight toward Lady George’s mansion. The air was warm and sweet and full of the scent of growing things. Tiny new leaves arched across the road, spreading their black lace against the darkening sky. It was as if the whole of nature had fallen asleep and was breathing deeply and evenly—the faint mist that was beginning to rise from the fields, her gentle breath.

He found himself relaxing and the nagging empty feeling he had been carrying around inside him for months began to recede.

As he drove up the winding drive of Lady George’s mansion he could hear the strains of music mingled with laughter.

Soon he had deposited his coat and was mounting the red-carpeted steps to the ballroom, breathing in the familiar smell of an English country house ball: hothouse flowers, beeswax, woodsmoke, and dog.

He shook hands and bowed to Lady George, who was receiving the guests, and then turned to be presented to her niece, Mary. A big ox-like girl grinned up at him from under a heavy fringe of dull-brown hair. A small light-brown mustache graced her upper lip, and her mouth was very full and red. He had a sudden urge to turn and flee, but instead he murmured politely that he hoped to have the pleasure of a dance with Miss Mary, adding hopefully that he was sure her dance card was already full. No, it wasn’t, said Mary with a great horse laugh. She was a regular farmyard this girl, thought Gerald bitterly as he wrote his name in her card with its little silver pencil.

He escaped into the ballroom, nodding and bowing to various familiar faces. He escaped to the champagne bar and joined the group of chattering young men who were fortifying themselves against the night ahead and discussing shooting, hunting, and military pursuits as if the female half of the race did not exist. Lord Gerald would like to have chatted about farming with someone but there was no one who seemed interested. He felt old and depressed and began to wonder whether he might be a bourgeois manqué.

He thought he heard the announcement, “Miss Bloggs,” but he immediately realized he must have been imagining things. Bloggs was such a ridiculous name anyway, a lump of a name, a common name. Still, it would do no harm to saunter to the ballroom and just look in.

Ginny was standing at the entrance to the ballroom, followed by Barbara and Tansy, who were looking as if they had just found out that the slipper did not fit. Barbara was bristling with silk and lace and feathers and looked like a dumpy self-important pouter pigeon. Tansy was thin and angular in tight purple georgette, and was wearing a pottery necklace that had obviously been hand-thrown in the studios of Bloomsbury, to judge from its knobby appearance and acid colors.

Cyril and Jeffrey brought up the rear, both magnificent in impeccably tailored evening dress.

Ginny stood bowing and smiling around and was quickly surrounded by a court of admirers, both male and female. He was surprised to notice that Ginny appeared to have become a great social success. But then was it so surprising? She had looks and a fortune and had already built up a reputation for herself as a hostess. Her eyes were vague and her smile empty and meaningless and Gerald sighed as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Despite the exquisite lines of her sapphire-blue dress and the magnificent diamonds that sparkled at her ears, her face was silly and empty and he could have laughed aloud from sheer relief.

He had thought of her and dreamed of her too much, he realized, until he had forgotten what the original looked like.

He turned his attentions to the other ladies present, noticing for the first time what a lot of pretty girls there were around, and endured his dance with Miss Mary with charming fortitude.

But as the evening went on and Ginny was constantly surrounded by admirers either on the floor or off, he began to experience the first nagging pangs of pique. She had not once looked in his direction or had given any sign that she was aware he existed. But why should she bother even though she had lain passionately in his arms? She had not been found out, and in this new and often shocking Edwardian society, which was kicking up its heels with a vengeance after the death of Queen Victoria, to be found out was the only crime.

Once again, as in the champagne bar, he felt stuffy and out-of-date.

He resolutely flirted with all the prettiest girls—unaware that he had never looked more handsome, with his fair hair bleached by the spring sun to bright-gold, his face tanned by his work in the fields, and his strange black eyes and high-bridged nose giving him an autocratic air.

He had just completed a noisy and exhausting set of the Lancers and was wondering whether to have a drink or call it an evening when the band began to play that lilting Strauss waltz, that haunting, yearning melody that he had once considered so sugary and trite—but that was before he fell in love. Well, he was not in love any longer and…

He turned to go. Ginny was standing right behind him with two young men assuring her that this was
their
dance.

“
Now
, what am I to do to settle this dispute?” said Ginny, dimpling delightfully up at them.

“Dance with me,” said Gerald, moving forward and wondering at the same time if he had lost his wits. The dimple disappeared and her face went blank, but she picked up her small train with accomplished grace and moved into his arms as the lilting music carried them slowly over the polished floor of the ballroom. She was wearing that scent again and he felt compelled to look down at her face to reassure himself that it was as stupid and empty as he had found it earlier. But for some reason she was dancing stiffly and awkwardly and was looking down at her little high-heeled slippers. She stumbled twice and then said in a low voice, “You must excuse me, Lord Gerald. I am tired and I do not think I want to dance anymore.”

If only he could have seen her face then, he could have led her to a seat and left her. But her head was still bent, so instead he found himself asking her whether she would like to walk on the terrace with him for a while.

She did not reply, and looking at her with some confusion, he finally took her arm very gently in his and led her out onto the terrace, where several couples were already walking up and down, despite the fact that the warm night was misty and damp.

They walked in silence. Suddenly a man gave a great guffaw and a girl shrieked with laughter. Gerald winced at the sound, which affected his nerves like a knife scraping on a pot. He led the unresisting girl down into the garden, too puzzled by her strange and uncharacteristic silence to notice that her shoes were becoming wet with the heavy dew and that the train of her dress was trailing unheeded across the damp lawn.

He paused at that uncomfortable piece of garden furniture, a rustic bench, and asked her whether she would like to sit down. Still she said nothing but she did sit down—at the very edge of the seat and with her head turned away from him, dew diamonds and real diamonds sparkling in her hair.

Her dress was cut low on her shoulders, her white skin emerging from the blue silk of the dress like some nymph of old rising from the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Her hand was lying on the bench encased in its long blue kid glove. He had a sudden desire to behave badly, to promote some reaction even if she slapped his face.

He picked up her hand and unbuttoned the small buttons at the wrist of her glove and, bending his head, pressed his lips to the white exposed skin. As his lips touched her wrist and the familiar smell of her perfume weaved itself around him like the coiling mist, he felt as if an electric charge had been shot through his body.

He suddenly knew why he had felt so lonely and lost all these months. He knew why he had tried to persuade himself that she was nothing more than an empty-headed doll. He raised his head and with great control turned her gently to face him. He drew off his white gloves and placed his long fingers on either side of her face, turning it up to his.

“I love you very much, Ginny,” he said. “It sounds silly, it sounds like something from a musical comedy but I mean this with all my heart. I can’t live without you. I-I’m lonely without you.”

Large tears began to run down the beautiful face turned up to his. “Why didn’t you say so before?” cried Ginny. “All those long months I’ve believed you thought I was nothing more than a tart you simply had to marry. And I would not marry any man on those terms.”

“I didn’t know it,” said Gerald, “but I do now. Can’t you see it in my eyes?”

“No,” said Ginny with a sudden infectious giggle. “They’re like great black pits.”

He gave her a little shake, sliding his hands down to her shoulders. “You will marry me,” he said and then much like his old manner, “You are going to marry me anyway, whether you like it or not. Say yes or I’ll wring your neck.”

“Yes, Gerald,” said Ginny.

“And you will marry me as soon as possible?”

“Yes, Gerald,” said Ginny meekly. “But what of all those urges that men and women should suppress? Are you going to sublimate them?”

“Yes,” said Gerald, gethering her into his arms. “I shall sublimate them on our honeymoon, my dear, if I have to keep you chained to the bed. Oh, Ginny…”

After a while Ginny murmured, “I refuse to be seduced on this knobbly bench in this damp garden. You don’t need to chain me to the bed, dear Gerald, just lead me to it.”

“We will be very good and proper,” said Gerald firmly. “We shall go back to the ball and I will announce our engagement.” Then he remembered the events leading up to their stay at the inn and gathered her close in his arms again. “Have there been any more abductions or mysterious coachmen?” he asked with his lips against her hair.

“No,” said Ginny and then shivered. “But it’s still there. At Courtney, I mean. That feeling of lurking menace. It was alright at the town house and Tansy certainly earned her keep. She had the town house running as smoothly as clockwork. I don’t think she will ever like me like Barbara does but she no longer hates me. Perhaps I’m imagining the whole thing. I dismissed Fosdyke, you know, the private detective. He wasn’t very good at detecting and he wasn’t very good as a footman either.”

“I won’t leave you now,” said Gerald. “You are going to invite me as a house guest and I shall be with you day and night even before we’re married. Especially the nights,” he added, sliding her dress further down her shoulders. Then he sighed, “What an awful lot of clothes you ladies do wear. How am I supposed to get at you through all this armor?”

“You’re not,” said Ginny, jerking her gown back up again. “Not here, that is. Do you realize, darling, that it’s turning colder and damper by the minute? You only have to wait until we make our announcement and get home.”

“Even if I kiss you like this… and here… and here?”

“Especially there and there,” said Ginny. “Don’t be wicked.”

“I’m not wicked,” said Gerald, sighing, helping her to her feet. “Simply anxious to make up for lost time.”

Their engagement announcement was generally well received although Lady George was torn between fury that Ginny, who she had begun to consider a decent sort of gel, should snatch such a marital prize and gratification that the announcement had been made at her ball.

Lord Gerald smiled and laughed and accepted congratulations and then turned to look down at Ginny. Her face was the old familiar blank and he felt a twinge of disappointment. Then she whispered so that only he could hear, “It’s here. That menace. Someone here
hates
me.”

“You’re tired and imagining things,” said Gerald, laughing.

And then he saw the four Frayne relatives bunched together in a group by the window. And he wondered.

Lord Gerald was not able to watch over Ginny as closely as he had planned. One problem after another seemed to rear its ugly head on his estates. The farmers, who had become used to his undivided attention, expected it to continue and Lord Gerald, a conscientious landlord, did not like to plead his new engagement as an excuse for escaping from his duties.

The wedding was set for a month ahead and Ginny canceled as many of her social engagements as she could manage. She had planned a picnic party and, as the weather continued sunny and warm, decided to go ahead with the preparations for it. A party of guests were to drive from Courtney to explore Hunterdown Caves. Dress was to be informal and the guests only numbered twenty or so.

Lord Gerald had tried to protest. Ginny must not crawl around the caves in the dark. It was simply asking for trouble. But Ginny had given her old placid smile and had said reassuringly that since Gerald was going to be there with her, no harm would probably come to her. She had begun to believe that her sensations of hate lurking in the rooms of Courtney had come from an overworked imagination and not enough food or sleep.

Since her engagement she had put on some much-needed weight. As far as sleeping arrangements were concerned, she and Lord Gerald had reluctantly decided to wait until their honeymoon. The idea of furtively stealing along the corridors in the middle of the night so as not to offend the servants had struck both as unromantic and unpleasant in the extreme. They had spent an enthusiastic and exhausting night together after the ball and Lord Gerald had overslept and had had to make his escape down the creeper outside Ginny’s window, which had given way and had landed him headfirst in a flower bed.