Michael Cox (29 page)

18

Thirty at Table, and What Followed

I
Dressing for Dinner

M
Y LADY
and I continued talking by the fire until it was time to dress for dinner.
‘Will you object to helping me dress, Alice?’ she asked. ‘I mean as a friend would do, of course, not as my maid? There’s a girl coming for interview next week – a relation of Pocock’s. If she answers, then I shall not trouble to see anyone else. Until then—’
I eagerly assured her that I was very happy to go on assisting her with her toilet until the new maid came, at which she clapped her hands, and gave me another kiss.
She had been recalling once again, in the most animated terms, her former friend, and the happy times they had enjoyed together.
‘How sad that such times had to come to an end,’ I remarked. ‘You mentioned certain circumstances…’
‘Forgive me, Alice.’ She had grown suddenly serious. ‘I cannot speak of these things.’
‘Well, then, of course I shan’t press you,’ I replied, deciding that I would show a little crossness at her refusal. ‘I only made the remark because I thought you wished to have someone in whom you could confide. But even friends, I suppose, must have their secrets.’
‘This is not a secret, Alice,’ she said, gently, but insistently. ‘The circumstances to which I alluded involve confidences that I simply cannot on any account break, even for a friend.’
Her voice had hardened, and the old imperious light flashed in her eyes. For a moment I feared that I had been too forward; then she seemed suddenly to recollect herself.
‘But these things are all in the past,’ she said. ‘Let us leave them there. This is a new beginning, for us both, and I hope that we shall feel able to share our secrets with each other, like true friends.’
I marvelled again at her hypocrisy, knowing full well that she would never willingly reveal the secret places of her heart to me.
As I finished helping her dress, she told me that she wished me to join the company for dinner that evening, and that I would henceforth take all my meals with the family.
‘I suppose tongues will wag,’ she sighed, ‘and heads will shake, and people will think that I have run quite mad, to raise my former maid in this way; but that should not concern us in the least, dear Alice. Everyone will soon see that you were not born to service, and then they will applaud my good sense in liberating you from it.’
On she chattered, until I had finished dressing her hair and had handed her the box containing the precious locket, on its black velvet band, in which she kept the strand of hair that she had cut from the head of Phoebus Daunt.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, placing the locket round her throat; ‘I have asked Barrington to take your things to the Tower Room tomorrow morning, so that you may wake on Christmas Day in your new bed. Now, what shall you wear tonight? You must make a good impression on our guests, you know. And Christmas Day is also dear Perseus’s coming of age. What a day it will be!’
Jumping up from her chair, she runs over to one of the great wardrobes, like some excitable young Miss on the eve of her first ball, and begins taking out several gowns, which she first holds up for inspection, and then throws impatiently down in a growing heap on the floor.
‘Ah!’ she exclaims at last, taking out an elegant dress of silver-grey silk, cut low over the shoulders, the skirt looped round with frills and bows of darker grey silk trimmed with red roses.
‘Just the thing! It will do very well, I think. Come, let me see you in it. I shall help you.’
So saying, she eagerly begins to unbutton the drab black dress that was my usual daily apparel, and then holds open the gown for me to step into.
It was most unsettling, to find myself being dressed by my Lady, as if she were the maid and I the mistress; but she appeared insensible to the incongruity of the situation. Indeed, she seemed rather to relish it, and prattled on gaily as she buttoned up the gown, fixed a circlet of pearls and paper flowers in my hair, and then took me over to the cheval-glass.
‘There!’ she cried, admiringly. ‘Quite transformed!’
She stood behind me, hands placed protectively on my bare shoulders, as we both looked at my reflection in the glass.
The gown fitted to perfection, for we were much of a height, and, despite the disparity in our ages, my Lady’s figure had remained almost as trim as mine. With our dark hair, and the not dissimilar cast of our features, it struck me forcibly that we might almost have been mistaken for mother and daughter. Perhaps the same thought had struck my Lady, for she suddenly started, and removed her hands from my shoulders.
‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed, more to herself than to me. Then, under her breath: ‘I was right!’
‘Is anything wrong, my Lady?’ I asked, mystified by her words.
‘Wrong? What could be wrong? It is just that – in this light – you look so like someone I once knew. You have always reminded me of this – person; but tonight – here, now – the resemblance is especially strong. It took me a little by surprise.’
‘Another friend?’ I asked.
This time she did not answer, but turned away, walked over to the dressing-table, and opened an ivory jewellery box.
‘One more thing, to make all complete,’ she said, bringing out from the box an exquisite opal-and-diamond necklace, which she made to place around my neck.
‘Oh, no!’ I protested, pulling away. ‘I cannot possibly – really, I cannot.’
‘Nonsense!’ she said, securing the clasp, and then stepping back to contemplate the effect. ‘You were born to wear such things. See how well you carry it.’
It was true. My reflection gave back the very picture of a well-born lady, perfectly at ease with expense and luxury.
Where now
, I thought to myself,
was the lowly maid?
I happened then to glance down at the ivory jewellery box, which still lay open on the dressing-table. Amongst several rings and bracelets jumbled together on the dark-red plush lining, I noticed a small key tied to a piece of black silk. This immediately aroused my curiosity; for where there is a key, there must also be a lock.
‘Come, Alice,’ said my Lady, taking my arm. ‘We must go down. Our guests are waiting.’

II
Mr Shillito’s Bad Memory

THE COMPANY OF Christmas guests has already assembled in the Chinese Salon – thirty persons in all. As my Lady and I enter, every head turns to observe us.
We move slowly about the extravagantly appointed and suddenly hushed room, and my Lady introduces me to each guest in turn as ‘Miss Gorst, my new companion’.
I am pleased to find that Mr Wraxall has been invited, and as my Lady turns away to speak to Sir Lionel Voysey, we exchange a few brief words concerning my impending visit to North Lodge.
As I am being presented to my Lady’s cousin, Major Hunt-Graham, we are joined by Mr Randolph.
‘Good-evening, Miss Gorst. I hope you are well,’ are his first words to me. He then compliments me on how charming I look, and asks what I have been doing since he has been away in Wales. All the usual enquiries are made, all the usual bland answers given; but his eyes seem to speak another language. For him, it seems, absence has done its proverbial work. There is no doubt in my mind. I had sensed how it might be, from his first words to me, from his ‘confession’ on our walk back from Easton, and from other signs and portents. I am now sure of it. For good or ill, amidst the hubbub and chatter, and the coming and going of servants, I am suddenly certain – extraordinary though it seems – that Mr Randolph Duport has fallen in love with me.
I am flattered, but also alarmed, for any gratification that I allow myself to feel is immediately tempered by the certainty that I can never return his feelings for me. I like Mr Randolph almost more than I have liked anyone in my life; indeed, I had felt drawn to his unaffected, open-hearted charm from the very moment of our first meeting outside the Library. I could once have imagined loving him, but no longer. I had not given my heart to him at first sight, as I might so easily have done, and know now that I never will.
The man I married might be handsome, or he might not; he might be young or old; he must return my love to the utmost, be kind and caring, and treat me as his equal in all things (a high ambition, but I believed such men existed). Above all, he must be someone from whom I could learn, as I had learned from Mr Thornhaugh, and in whose mental life I could share. Mr Randolph – as I had come to know him, and from the reports of others – was good-natured and sympathetic, liked by all; but it was also plain to me, from my own observations, that he lacked those qualities of mind that I was determined the man I loved would possess.
Mr Perseus, by contrast, matched my ideal far more closely: a poet, a cultivated man of taste and discernment, with the additional material attractions of one day inheriting an ancient peerage, and becoming as rich as Croesus. He had, besides, that element of mystery about him that is naturally alluring to someone of my romantic disposition. He had intrigued me from the first, although I had barely acknowledged the fact to myself. As the weeks had passed, however, my fascination had increased. I had felt that there was so much in him to be discovered. His brother seems always to wear his heart on his sleeve, presenting himself to the world as he appears really to be – open, frank, and uncomplicated. Mr Perseus, by contrast, is secretive, reticent, continually on his guard. But I do not see Mr Perseus as others appear to do. He is proud, of course: proud of who he is, proud of his ancient family and its lofty position in the world, proud of his own abilities. Yet although I could wish he were less conscious of his own worth, I do not believe that his habitual reserve, or the attitude of arrogant disdain that he is wont to assume towards others less fortunate, or less accomplished, than himself, reflect an inflexible and constricted nature, devoid of the capacity to feel for others. My heart tells me otherwise: that, unlike his brother, Mr Perseus is more – much more – than he seems to be, or than he allows himself to be.
As these thoughts run helter-skelter through my mind, they are interrupted by the arrival of Mr Perseus himself, bowing stiffly, and wishing me good-evening.
‘Well, Miss Gorst,’ he remarks, sweeping his eye over my borrowed gown, and bringing it to rest on the necklace his mother had insisted on my wearing, ‘you have shed your old skin, I see. You stand before us quite new born.’
‘Now, dear, you mustn’t tease,’ reproves my Lady, gently patting her eldest son’s arm.
‘Oh, I don’t tease, I assure you,’ replies Mr Perseus, without taking his eyes from me. ‘I never tease, as I have told you before. I am perfectly serious. I see nothing but good in the change. You’ve blossomed, Miss Gorst, most remarkably, in a matter of hours. What next, I wonder? You’ll soon be queen of us all.’
‘And as I have said before, sir,’ say I, still unsure whether he is speaking in jest or not, ‘I have no other ambition than to serve my Lady, and shall do so as her companion, as I did as her maid, to the best of my ability. A fine gown changes nothing. I am still the person I was.’
‘You are wrong,’ he returns, more quietly now, but emphatically. ‘You are changed a great deal, or rather you have reverted to what you really are. Don’t you agree, Randolph?’
He gives his brother a look of indisputable challenge, as if he were taunting him to disagree; but before anything more can be said, we are joined by Mr Vyse and a perspiring, portly gentleman, whom I immediately presume to be Mr Roderick Shillito.
Now here is the predicament that I had expected. I must be introduced to the newcomer. Will my name raise a remembrance in him of my father?
Mr Vyse, leaning on his silver-topped stick and beaming in his customary lupine manner, bows a silent greeting to my Lady, and then holds out his hand towards me.
‘Shillito, may I have the honour of introducing Miss Esperanza Gorst, her Ladyship’s new companion. Miss Gorst has become a great adornment to Evenwood society, and is set to become an even greater one, I predict.’
He then takes a step back, as if better to observe the effect of his words on his friend, whom I shall now present to my readers by transcribing the description of him that I wrote in my Book of Secrets:
MR RODERICK SHILLITO
Age and Appearance:
fifty or so years old. Tall – nearly as tall as Mr Vyse – but corpulent, and lumbering in his movements. Pink skin stretched tight over large moon face. Small, mean mouth; moist, pale-lashed, porcine eyes set close together. Across the top of his head is a broad slab of bald, mottled flesh, flanked by swept-back waves of stiff, dirty-yellow hair, like parched grass. All in all, gives out the impression of an elderly, and viciously inclined,
putto
.
Character:
presents a complete picture of the dedicated self-seeker. Fixed expression of sly degeneracy, unmitigated by any redeeming quality of spontaneous generosity, or fellow-feeling. An accomplished sponger, I should say – and much worse, no doubt. A strange associate for Mr Vyse (to whom he habitually defers), having none of the latter’s flamboyant sophistication, and certainly his inferior in point of intellect.
Conclusion:
a repellent buffoon in many ways, but also, I am sure, a bully and a coward.
After Mr Vyse has spoken my name, Mr Shillito scratches his fat head and purses his fat, wet lips.
‘Gorst,’ he says slowly. ‘There’s a name I think I know, though I’m damned if I can remember where. Were you ever in Dublin, Miss Gorst?’
‘No, sir. Never.’
‘Were you not? Hmm.’
He gives himself up to further strained rumination; and then the light of dim recollection begins to seep into his pale eyes.
‘I have it! I met a man once, in Madeira, by the name of Gorst. That’s it! Say now, Miss Gorst, have I hit it? Were you ever in Madeira?’
‘Never in my life, sir,’ I reply, conscious that my cheeks are growing warm, and that both my Lady and Mr Vyse are now taking a close interest in the turn the conversation has taken.
‘It’s an odd thing,’ Mr Shillito retorts, with a deriding snort, and looking round at the others in the apparent expectation of their support for the line he has taken. ‘Gorst is an uncommon name, ain’t it? It’s certain I’ve only ever known one other person who went by it. Now here’s a second, and yet it seems there’s no connexion with this fellow I met in Madeira. Rum.’
Another sceptical snort, as if to prove his case.
I decide that my best course is to remain silent; but then my Lady intervenes.
‘When did you make this gentleman’s acquaintance, Mr Shillito?’ she asks.
‘Let me see,’ he replies. ‘It would have been in ’55, or thereabouts – no, ’56. I remember now, ’56. I’m sure of it.’
‘No more, then, than a year or so before you were born, Alice,’ observes my Lady. ‘Is it possible, do you think, that the gentleman in question was a relation – your father, even? Did you ever hear of him visiting Madeira?’
Naturally, I deny having any such knowledge; then a most welcome and unexpected interjection from Mr Perseus, who has remained sternly regarding Mr Shillito throughout the previous exchanges, prevents any further enquiries. Fixing Mr Shillito with one of his most freezing stares, and with barely disguised contempt, he expresses the opinion that it is rather bad form for a
gentleman
(laying particular emphasis on the word) to subject a lady to unwelcome interrogation.
Mr Shillito shrugs indifferently, but says nothing. Mr Vyse then breaks the rather awkward silence.
‘Well said, sir. This is a festive occasion, so let us be festive! Ah, Pocock has opened the doors. Shall we go in?’
Offering his arm to my Lady, he leads her out, bowing and smiling to the company as if he were the undisputed master of the house. Two by two, the other guests begin to follow them into the mirrored Dining-Room, to take their places at the great table.
The effect on my Lady’s eldest son of seeing Mr Vyse escort his mother into dinner is most apparent. I distinctly hear him whisper, ‘Damn the fellow!’ under his breath, before walking angrily out of the room.
I am taken into the Dining-Room by Mr Randolph Duport, leaving Mr Shillito to accompany the Rector’s daughter, freckled, bony-handed Miss Jemima Thripp, with patent bad grace.
‘Dashed bad of Shillito to quiz you in that impudent manner,’ says Mr Randolph as we enter the great crimson-and-gold room. ‘I’m surprised, too, that Mother encouraged him.’
‘And what do you think of his friend, Mr Vyse?’
‘Clever fellow, Vyse,’ he replies, rather guardedly. ‘Since Father died, Mother has become quite dependent on him – I mean for advice on business matters, and so on. Of course Perseus doesn’t approve of him. Thinks he has some sort of power over her.’
This remark makes me prick up my ears.
‘Power? What can you mean?’
‘Well, some hold or influence over her. Perseus is convinced of it. Of course Vyse was a great pal of Mr Phoebus Daunt – thick as thieves, by all accounts – and Shillito was at school with Daunt, which gives them both a special claim on Mother’s favour.’
‘But surely my Lady cannot like Mr Shillito?’ I said.
He shook his head.
‘Assuredly not, but she endures him as a kind of duty to Mr Daunt. Now, where have they put you?’
We had reached the sumptuously laid-out table, and I was suddenly anxious that I might have been seated near, or even next to, Mr Shillito; but Mr Randolph, having gone to speak with Mr Pocock, soon came back to tell me that my Lady had instructed that I should sit next to her. Mr Shillito, I was relieved to see, had been placed halfway down the table, from where he could not easily trouble me.
Thus I found myself, taking my dinner with all the Christmas guests, in the Crimson-and-Gold Dining-Room at Evenwood, sitting at the head of the table with Lady Tansor and her two sons, under the great barrel roof, dazzled by the array of gold plate and glittering crystal, and surrounded by the endless, shifting reflections in the tall mirrors that lined the walls.
I was looking up at the gallery, from where – not so very long ago – I had looked down on just such a fine company as this, when the dusty curtains parted and the face of Mrs Battersby appeared. For several seconds, her eyes remained fixed on me, but then Mr Randolph made some remark, and when I looked up again, the housekeeper had gone.