Chapter Four
EFFIE
Three months later – early December 1930
Dupplin Castle, Perthshire
‘Why can’t we do Private Lives ?’ Bitsy Cameron complained from her stretched-out position on the four-poster bed. Her toenails were painted scarlet, vivid even through her stockings, and she didn’t care that a button on her silk blouse was missing, flashing a slice of pale stomach. ‘Everyone in London says it’s a riot.’
‘God, I miss London,’ Peony Lovat sighed, looking bored and beautiful.
‘We’re not doing a No?l Coward when I’ve spent the past week writing this especially for us,’ Veronica Maudsley replied without looking up, biting her lip as she scribbled an amendment at the dressing table. ‘Wait till you hear the punchlines to the jokes. I managed to put one in about Gerry’s shooting accident with the peacock.’
‘Old hat,’ Peony sighed. ‘I don’t know why we have to do a play at all.’
‘Well, it’s either rehearse for this or stand as peg dollies in the mud all week.’ Veronica’s pointed look at the mention of mud made Peony turn away with a shudder.
Effie stood at the window, watching the driving rain pound into the ground like glass bullets and wishing she could be standing in it. She offered no comment on their choice of activities as she looked out at the grounds; she was more preoccupied with the realization that these castles all began to seem very alike after a while. Turrets, grand staircases, draughty rooms, formal gardens criss-crossed with ornamental parterres...This was their third in as many weeks.
News of their engagement had spread like wildfire since Sholto had returned from Dumfries House with his parents’ blessing – Effie had remained in Oban with Mhairi and Donald for an extra day – and, ever since, they had been on what could only be described as a celebratory tour, staying with his friends. He was keen for her to meet everyone, he said, but she sensed something more below the surface: he wanted her to be accepted. He knew as well as she did that the match would be controversial – a point proved by the fact they had received invitations from seemingly every duke’s son in the country, as everyone clamoured to see the woman who had bedazzled one of Scotland’s most eligible bachelors.
Effie lived in perpetual fear of disappointing them. She wasn’t a dazzling beauty of Flora’s order; indeed, her hair was always tangled, and she didn’t see the point in putting powder on her face. It was her effervescent, indomitable spirit that Sholto had fallen in love with, but girlish stubbornness and defiance didn’t play so well in country-house drawing rooms, and she could feel herself becoming tamed. She was quickly learning that it was better to remain quiet and reserved in company. Saying the wrong thing, even just the wrong word , marked her as an outsider, which was difficult when these people did so love to talk.
She had always thought Rachel and Christina could blether, but the women here seemed to live for gossip. Scandal was the highlight of their day, and no one gossiped more than the girls in this room. They had greeted her like an old friend with kisses on the cheek, showering her with compliments, but Effie knew heightened good manners were the aristocrats’ armour: their smiles were bulletproof, and cool gazes quenched inner rage. She knew her every move was being studied, stored and filed for future reference.
Still, Bitsy, Peony and Veronica couldn’t talk behind her back while she was sitting directly opposite them, and their days here had acquired a certain louche rhythm: rising late, a cooked breakfast, followed by the men going outdoors for some sporting pursuit while the women remained indoors, talking, preening and planning the next party.
Distantly, Effie recalled Lorna calling for more and better . She had assumed that this applied only to the St Kildans, but now she understood that even Sholto’s gilded circle wasn’t immune to want. In fact, his friends arguably wanted more than she and her friends ever had: finding a ‘good’ husband (which meant rich, landed and noble) was their primary focus, but while they waited, they were always on the hunt for more fun! More champagne! More parties! More jewels! Novelty seemed to be what they craved most, and she had certainly given them that these past few weeks.
Sholto tried to be reassuring, telling her his friends loved her, that everyone found her a breath of spring air. But he didn’t understand how many unspoken rules there were for her to learn. He had been born into this world – he didn’t even know he knew what he knew! – whereas she found herself laughing at the wrong things, or else not laughing when she should. She hadn’t read the books that had formed their minds, nor could she formulate an opinion on dresses or shoes. In company, Sholto helped shelter her from the worst of her ignorance, standing by her side like a kindly referee; she had a suspicion he had asked the girls to ‘look out for her’ too, and they were always ostentatiously welcoming in public. But when it was just the ladies alone, as now, hers was an almost silent presence. Like a child, she was seen but not heard.
With relief, she saw the men walking through the grounds, returning early from playing golf as the weather closed in. Sholto had been playing in a pair with their host, Viscount ‘Gladly’ Dupplin, against Tarquin ‘Colly’ Colquhoun and Ferg Campbell. Their tweeds were soaked, raindrops dripping off the peaks of their caps, and she wished she could be out there with them instead of in this powder-dry room. She wished her puppies could be here with her instead of remaining back with her father. She wished many things that weren’t possible. She watched until they walked into the lee of the castle, disappearing from view.
Veronica looked up at Peony with an earnest expression. ‘I say, does that piper play the trumpet?’
‘Why are you asking me?’ Peony pouted, a defensive flush springing to her cheeks. ‘You know, you really shouldn’t believe everything you hear, Veronica!’
‘I’d have him whipped and shot if I could.’ Bitsy rolled her eyes. ‘Every single morning! It’s insufferable.’
‘Hmm, it would just have so much more... gusto if we came on in the first act to the trumpet...’ Veronica thought hard for a moment. ‘I shall ask Gladly if we can borrow him for the show. Although bagpipes could work too.’
Effie watched as they all talked at, but not to, one another.
Veronica scribbled something down in the margin of the top page. ‘I think this will suffice for a first draft,’ she said, pushing back her chair and handing out the typed scripts.
‘What’s it about?’ Peony asked, flicking through the pages without bothering to read them.
‘Think Swan Lake meets A Farewell to Arms ,’ Veronica said after a moment’s pause.
Bitsy’s eyes narrowed. Neither reference meant anything to Effie, of course, but Bitsy was sharp of mind as well as sharp of tongue, and Effie was learning the nuance of most things by observing her waspish wit. ‘A princess disguised as a swan falls in love with her lover’s friend?’
Veronica gave a small huff. ‘No swans, but lots of doomed romance. It’s a story of love and betrayal during a time of war.’
‘Oh well, that story’s never been told before—’
‘But with comedy!’ Veronica protested. ‘I wanted to keep it light-hearted.’
‘Good idea. Important to laugh through the mustard gas.’
Peony giggled as Veronica threw a velvet cushion at Bitsy. Bitsy gasped and threw one back, her eyes wide. Within moments, a pillow fight had erupted; even Peony was roused from her languor to take part. Feathers and sheets of paper danced through the air. Effie watched, open-mouthed and smiling, as the young women jumped on the bed, squealing and laughing, suddenly alive. Were they really so very different from Flora, Mhairi and Molly? Their dresses were finer, the surroundings grander, but at heart, weren’t they also carefree young women waiting for their lives to start? It felt like the first spontaneous thing she’d seen them do.
Effie grinned, picking up a cushion on the chair beside her, and threw it at Bitsy – currently straddling Veronica and swiping wildly through the air – with a strong aim. A lifetime of snagging puffins in traps and cragging on sheer cliffs meant she had precise hand-to-eye coordination. The cushion hit her victim square in the face, knocking a tortoiseshell comb from Bitsy’s coiffed hair as she fell backwards on the bed, knocking her head on the headboard on the way down.
‘Oh!’ Effie squirmed as a horrified silence fell upon the room and she realized direct hits were not, in fact, the intention. ‘I – I’m so sorry.’
Looks were shared as everyone dropped their weapons. The game was over as suddenly as it had begun. Peony smoothed her dress as Bitsy replaced her hair comb with a look of irritation. Effie had the impression they were checking their tempers with her, holding back the words they always felt quite free to launch at one another as old friends; the fact they didn’t, with her, only made her feel more of an outsider.
‘Why don’t we go downstairs and have a rummage in the dressing-up box?’ Veronica said with forced cheer. ‘One of the characters needs an opera cape and I seem to recall Gladly had one last year.’
‘Who wears an opera cape during a war?’ Bitsy muttered, still smoothing her hair as they headed for the door.
Effie trailed after them, feeling chastened, her heart heavy in her chest as they wound down from the tower room to the castle’s imposing reception hall. Housemaids in black dresses and white pinafores fluttered like moths along the corridors, always just out of sight, slipping silently behind hidden doors that led back to the servants’ quarters. Effie caught herself wishing she could disappear into the innards of the castle too; only a few months ago, she had been a member of ‘below stairs’ herself. But now, wearing Sholto’s engagement ring with a silk blouse and finely tailored woollen trousers, she belonged on this side of the castle walls and she was obliged to follow Bitsy, Veronica and Peony down to the old playroom.
Like all the other rooms in the castle, it was vast. Her old home could easily have fit inside it and still not touched the sides. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, with wooden toys as well as books set along them. There was an oak desk and chair, several sagging sofas arranged in small groups, the fireplace unlit. The windows gave onto the east lawn and it was so cold that frost still sat inside the glass.
At the far end, tattered pea-green silk curtains were swagged above a small, low stage. A deep-red velvet Victorian chaise longue stood askew upon it beside a lamp table, left over from the last production. Naively painted panels of a drawing room created a backdrop that didn’t seem in keeping with Veronica’s plotline. Perhaps she could help paint a new one, Effie wondered. She wasn’t entirely hopeless with a paintbrush.
Veronica headed straight for a large domed leather trunk in the corner and opened it with intent; she seemed to know exactly what she was looking for, rifling through piles of old costumes. Then again, this was an annual tradition of theirs, old friends gathering here for the Dupplin house play in the weeks before Christmas.
Bitsy rang the bell. ‘It’s freezing in here,’ she said, shivering.
Peony idly set the stylus on the gramophone and music filled the room. Effie hovered again, unsure where to put herself. She was surrounded by bored women and careless beauty, and she realized again that she had become the girl she’d envisaged that night in the featherstore on St Kilda last spring, when Sholto had entered her life by just a few hours. She would never have believed she’d end up here, nor that if she did, it would feel like this: empty and dull, everything somehow flat. If Flora were here, she would know just the thing to say or do, to somehow bring a sparkle to the group. But Effie had always been a creature of the outdoors, better suited to doing than to talking.
‘My ladies,’ a maid said, coming into the room and seeing with horror that the fire was laid but unlit. She hurried over and put a match to it, flames leaping into life and enlivening the room.
‘That’s hardly going to help us now, is it?’ Bitsy snapped at the girl. ‘It’s perishing in here. Why wasn’t the fire set hours ago?’
‘I’m sorry, m’lady,’ the maid stammered. ‘We didn’t think the room would be used today.’
‘Not used today?’ Bitsy was incredulous. ‘But we always do the show during this week. Everyone knows that. The preparations take days. Are we to rehearse in our furs?’
‘I’m so sorry, m’lady. It’s my first month here. I didn’t know.’
‘First and last, if you ask me.’
The maid gasped, horrified at the threat. Effie felt the same. She looked at the others: Peony was leaning against the back of a chair, looking more interested than she had been all day, and Veronica was still kneeling by the dressing-up trunk, trying on a Venetian mask.
‘What would the viscount think if I were to tell him of your negligence, hmm? We’re his guests! His oldest, dearest friends, and you’d have us shivering and catching our deaths?’
‘I’m so sorry, m’lady. Please don’t tell him,’ the maid beseeched. ‘Let me make it right.’
‘And how exactly are you going to do that? This room will take at least an hour to heat. That’s an hour wasted while we wait around for something you should have done hours ago.’
The girl stared down at her shoes, her face pale, as she awaited sentencing.
There was a long silence as Bitsy regarded her, seeing how she trembled. Her appetite for blood abated as quickly as it had come on. ‘...Oh, don’t look so feeble. Bring us some tea,’ she said finally. ‘At least we might warm our hands around our cups.’
‘Yes, m’lady. Straight away.’ The maid turned to leave the room.
‘...But before you go, what is your name?’
The girl swallowed. She was like a mouse caught under Bitsy’s sharp claws. ‘Matilda.’
‘I see.’ Bitsy nodded. ‘Hurry along then, Matilda .’
Effie looked away as the girl scuttled out. She could imagine her running through the passageway in tears, the other servants flocking to learn the cause of her distress. But would they condemn or console her? The below-stairs world was just as much a political maze as this one.
‘Here it is!’ Veronica’s triumphant cry made them all look over as she wrapped a black taffeta cloak around her shoulders and twirled extravagantly. She appeared oblivious to Bitsy’s heinous bullying. ‘It’ll be just perfect.’
‘What’s the feathery thing there?’ Peony asked from her perch, pointing imperiously towards the trunk.
‘This?’ Veronica pulled out an extravagant ostrich-feather fan, opening it and swatting the air in front of her a few times.
‘I hope there’s a scene where I can use that?’ Peony asked. ‘It could make a feature of my eyes.’ She held a hand in front of her nose, batting her eyelashes coquettishly.
‘I’m not sure.’
Peony raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘Ronnie, if there’s scope for an opera cape in your wartime novella, there’s scope for a fan.’
Bitsy glanced at Effie, positioned at the window again. ‘What are you always looking for out there, Effie?’ she queried. ‘Devising an exit strategy?’
‘Of course not—’
‘Come over here,’ Bitsy commanded.
Effie reluctantly crossed the room. No one ever said no to Bitsy, it seemed.
‘Have you ever had a go on a rocking horse?’
‘No.’ What little wood ever drifted onto St Kilda’s beach had always been put to better use than modelling racehorses.
‘Well, now’s your chance,’ Bitsy smiled, patting the leather saddle on its back.
Effie looked at her in confusion. ‘But it’s a child’s toy.’
‘Lucky, then, that you’re the size of a twelve-year-old girl. Some of us have big bones and can’t share in the fun. Come along, hop on!’
Effie looked at the large black-and-white speckled horse. Its legs sat upon huge wooden bows; it had a long white mane of real hair, glass eyes, and teeth bared in a menacing smile. Effie wasn’t sure she’d have gone near it if she were a child.
‘Throw a leg over. Don’t worry about being ladylike; it’s only us girls here, after all. We can have a giggle, can’t we?’
It wasn’t being ladylike that Effie had a problem with; she simply couldn’t understand the attraction of sitting atop this menacing wooden horse. Still, she was never one to show weakness, and she swung easily onto the seat, immediately grabbing the mane as the toy rocked forward, then back, under her weight.
She giggled nervously, catching Bitsy’s eye as the other woman pushed her back and forth. ‘See? Such fun, isn’t it?’
‘...Aye,’ Effie nodded after a moment. ‘It is.’
The rhythm was soothing as she rocked back and forth, the fire crackling in the background, music playing through the gramophone, and she felt herself capture, again, another fleeting feeling of contentment in this strange new world in which she found herself. Fun. It could have different definitions, she realized; it wasn’t just confined to scaling vertical cliffs.
‘Do you ride, Effie?’ Peony asked, watching from one of the sofas she had collapsed into. She always seemed perpetually exhausted, as if being upright, or awake, taxed her body.
‘No,’ Effie said, shaking her head.
‘Oh?’ Peony gave a small frown. ‘That’s odd, I was sure I heard you did. Didn’t you, Bits?’
‘Mm, yes, now you mention it,’ Bitsy replied.
Effie felt her stomach pitch. She had been on a horse only once in her life and, but for the grace of God, it might have killed her. Lady Sibyl, Sholto’s former fiancée, had pulled her mount into a full gallop across the Dumfries estate, knowing full well she was a novice. Sholto had been furious, and it had taken Effie hours to recover from the shakes, but there was no way they could know about that...Not unless someone had told them. Sholto had no reason to mention it, but...
Oh, God. Were these women friends of Sibyl’s? The scandal of Sholto calling off his engagement to her in the summer had been reignited when word spread of his engagement to Effie instead, but Sholto had assured her it was old news, that no one would call sides. And yet...
‘A little more?’ Bitsy asked, pushing her a little harder. The pendulum swing increased, the horse tipping right to the very edges of the front and back bows.
Effie gave another squeal, but the delight had gone now, and she shook her head. Just a little harder and she would topple over, crashing face first into the table.
‘Oh, yes, it’s great fun!’
‘No, I’d rather not—’
‘Where’s your spirit of adventure?’ Bitsy laughed. ‘I’ll just give you one more push.’
‘No! No, please!’ Effie cried as Bitsy pushed harder anyway. She pulled back as the horse bowed forward to the very tip of the rails, falling back on her climbing skills and using her weight to counterbalance and reduce the dip.
‘I say! What’s going on in here?’ a male voice asked loudly, interrupting them all. Effie’s head turned towards the door – Gladly was standing there, Sholto coming in on his heel with a concerned look – but the movement of her body must have spun the toy on the wooden floor, because there was a sudden, splintering scream in her ear that made her jolt.
Effie turned back with a gasp to find Bitsy now thrown on the ground, clutching her foot.
‘Bits!’ Peony yelped, leaping from the chair and running towards her.
‘My toes! She’s broken my toes!’ Bitsy sobbed.
‘Let me see!’ Peony demanded, slipping the shoe from her friend’s foot. Already, through the silk stockings, Bitsy’s pretty painted toes were swelling. ‘Oh, you beast!’ she cried, looking back at Effie. ‘She’s wretched! How could you do this to her? And after you hit her in the face, too! What’s come over you, Effie?’
‘I...’ Effie stared back at her, appalled by this misrepresentation of events.
‘You hit her in the face?’ Gladly asked with a disbelieving tone. He hurried over to where Bitsy lay on the ground, weeping.
Effie looked at Sholto, seeing his expression change, a flush of embarrassment coming into his cheeks. ‘...I can explain,’ she whispered.
There was a moment’s silence, and in it she saw the gulf between them that he kept saying they could bridge. He blinked it away in the next instant.
‘Of course you can. It was clearly an accident,’ he said hurriedly, coming over and drawing her into him as she slid off the horse. He kissed her hair as they watched the others help Bitsy into the chair and Gladly examined her wounds.
‘Well, I’m no doctor, but I’ve seen my fair share of crushed feet in the owners’ enclosures. I don’t think they’re broken,’ he smiled reassuringly. ‘But you’ll have a nasty bruise for a few days.’
‘It was entirely our fault,’ Sholto said. ‘Barging in like that without knocking. We distracted you.’
Effie looked up at him, grateful for his tactful rescue but also hating that she needed rescuing at all. She was used to conflict and drama back home – usually with the men saying she couldn’t do what they did – but here, she couldn’t advocate for herself; it wasn’t seemly. Sholto had to endorse her, defend her, protect her. Her word didn’t count.
‘Where are the others?’ Peony asked.
‘Drying off. It’s raining buckets out there. The greens are turning into blues.’
Peony frowned. ‘Hmm?’
‘Rivers. Lakes, old girl,’ Gladly said, getting up. ‘Anyway, we came here to let you know Albie’s invited us to Blair for cocktails this evening. Some Hollywood types have turned up unexpectedly and he needs to give them a show. I trust that will please you all?’
Peony and Bitsy both straightened up with looks of immediate interest.
‘When you say a show—’ Veronica piped up.
‘Not that sort,’ Peony snapped.
‘Who’s Albie?’ Effie asked Sholto quietly.
‘Son of the Duke of Atholl. Good sort, likes to fish,’ he said distractedly, looking down at her with concern. ‘Was everything all right just now, before we came in?’ he murmured. ‘I thought I heard you calling out. You sounded distressed.’
‘No, I was fine,’ Effie nodded, feeling the lie catch in her chest. But what else could she say? It would only worry him to hear that she’d detected real anger in Bitsy’s actions. Had it only been retaliation for Effie hitting her in the pillow fight, or something else? Did Bitsy resent Effie for snagging Sholto because she was a commoner and he was such a prize? Or because he was a man who had once been betrothed to her friend?
They all knew each other, this set, moving between country houses and castles as easily as Effie had once wandered up and down the street in Village Bay; the only difference was scale. Perth, Edinburgh, Oxford, London...it didn’t really matter, everyone was connected on their glittering, golden web. And Effie couldn’t help but feel she was the fly, caught in the middle of it all.