Chapter Ten #2
Had he seen the kiss? Oh, God, had he seen it? Miss Canning’s face was a polite blank, and he didn’t introduce her. He gave Jervis the merest nod, half lifted his hat to Rachel, and walked on.
‘I believe there are ices,’ Jervis said. ‘Shall we go and find one?’
‘Oh, there you are,’ Richard said, finding Alice sitting alone under a tree. ‘What are you up to?’
She showed him. With a small pencil – the sort that came with dance-cards, but minus the tassel – she was sketching on the back of a card of invitation.
‘I wanted to get the shape of a group down so that I can paint it later,’ she said.
‘This is the best I can do. Aunt Caroline wouldn’t let me bring a sketching-book. ’
‘I should think not,’ Richard said.
‘Why shouldn’t I have pleasure like everyone else?’ she complained. ‘Just because my pleasure is different?’
‘If you have to wonder that, you have missed the whole point of civilisation,’ he said.
‘Someone has to record these things, or how shall we remember them?’
‘I have seen a photographer wandering about,’ Richard said. ‘The Worsley-Dennings are very modern. Now, put that away and come for a stroll with me, and enjoy the things you are supposed to enjoy.’
She sighed, but obeyed, and took his arm. She said, ‘Kitty seems to be having a lovely time.’
‘She’s enjoying things while she can, which is very practical of her.’
‘Oh, is she—?’
‘Not as far as I know. But for a married woman it could happen at any time.’
‘I think she’s enjoying being with Giles somewhere he can’t dash off on business and leave her. She’s still in love with him. I believe you have to be in love to enjoy this sort of thing.’
‘Nonsense. I’m not in love, and I’m enjoying it.’
‘But you enjoy everything.’
He pressed her hand. ‘Aren’t you in love, then, my poor little sister? It seems a very unnatural state for a girl of nineteen.’
‘I’m twenty,’ she informed him robustly.
‘I beg your pardon. How time flies! But still not in love?’
‘I didn’t say that, exactly.’
‘Exactly? An ominous word. I hope you’re not throwing away your heart on some unworthy fellow.’
‘He’s definitely not unworthy,’ she said. ‘But he’s not here.’
‘Oh, look, they’re setting up the orchestra’s chairs – I think the dancing will begin soon. Was that a sigh?’
‘No-one to dance with,’ she said.
‘I’ll partner you, to prime the pump. Once the other young men see you going round with me, they’ll want to dance with you too. Men are like that.’
‘I’ll dance with you,’ Alice said. ‘I don’t mind if no-one else asks me.’ It wasn’t quite true, though.
Richard had spotted the Ravenscars and Miss Rowsham several times at a distance, but between chaperoning Alice and attending to Aunt Caroline’s and Grandmère’s comfort, he’d had no time to go and talk to them.
Having danced with Alice and then one or two more females whom his aunt pushed him towards, he found himself unengaged at last and saw Miss Rowsham standing alone at the edge of the floor.
He hurried over to her, before anyone else could intervene.
‘Would you care to dance, Miss Rowsham – if your previous exertions have not tired you?’ he asked, offering his hand.
‘Thank you,’ Miss Rowsham said, placing her hand in his with pleasing readiness. ‘It is not my feet that are tired. I am conversationally exhausted.’
‘Indeed?’ Richard said, guiding her onto the floor and into the throng. ‘I happened to be watching you going round with Robert Kemp, and I didn’t notice that you were talking a great deal.’
She smiled slightly at ‘happened to be watching’, and said, ‘It is not the quantity, Mr Tallant, but the quality. It leaves one racking one’s brain for a response.’
‘Hmm. I know Kemp a little, and I find it hard to imagine that he could have stumped you on any wicket.’
‘It’s not only Mr Kemp, of course,’ she said judiciously.
‘It happens every time. After a period of strenuous silence, and with a great effort, one’s partner says, “Oh, Miss Rowsham, don’t you find it gets awf’ly dark at night?
”’ Richard began to laugh. ‘So I say, “Yes, Mr Kemp, yes, I do!” And, as it’s my job to encourage, I ask, “Why do you suppose that is, Mr Kemp?” And after serious thought, he says, “I suppose it is the absence of the sun, Miss Rowsham.” So I say, in admiring tones, “Why, how clever of you to think of that, Mr Kemp,” and honour is satisfied. ’
‘You are a very wicked mimic, Miss Rowsham,’ Richard said appreciatively.
She sighed. ‘I was properly brought up, you know, though you mightn’t think it.
My father said, “It’s pretty faces that win husbands, Addie, not cleverness.
” And my mother said, “If a young lady has the misfortune to know anything at all, she should try to forget it.” Let me show you how proper I can be.
Ask me my opinion about something serious. ’
‘Very well. What do you think about the Education Bill, Miss Rowsham?’
She affected a childish voice. ‘Oh, Mr Tallant, I’m too stupid to understand politics! I leave that sort of thing to you gentlemen.’ She reverted to her normal voice. ‘You see, I do know how to behave.’
‘And yet you don’t behave with me. Why is that?’
She seemed to consider. ‘I think because you have already seen me at my worst. At that dreadful train crash I behaved shockingly. Reputation, poor thing, was turned out of doors in her shift that day and perished in the snow. Now I have nothing to lose.’
‘I’m rather glad of it,’ he said. ‘But I don’t recommend you try it on anyone else.’
‘Why do men prefer silly women?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure we prefer them.’ he said. ‘It’s more that we don’t expect to converse with females. Everywhere that we spend much time – at school, at university, in the army, the Church, the law, the office, in our clubs – we only ever talk to men. Women are for other purposes.’
‘Women are pretty playthings,’ she suggested, ‘and the rational man does not talk to inanimate objects.’
‘Come, that’s a little harsh.’
‘My father used to talk to his dogs,’ she offered, in mitigation.
‘I have been known to curse my collar studs,’ he admitted. ‘But they never seem to mend their ways.’
‘Now you are talking to me as if I were a human being! Why are you different from other men?’
‘Perhaps because,’ he said slowly, ‘I once knew a woman with a mind, who gave me a taste for it.’
‘Is she the one who makes you look sad? The one who makes you think marriage is not for you?’
‘You believe I think that?’
‘You have that air. It’s very useful, by the way. You should cultivate it. It allows you to enjoy female company without being suspected of serious intent.’
He laughed. ‘You are too acute.’
‘Oh dear, I’ve failed again. If my sister could hear me, she’d be horrified. She keeps giving me sterling advice and I keep forgetting it.’
‘Forgetting – or ignoring?’
She gave him a stern look. ‘You are very cruel, sir, to suppose I know the difference. Kindly address me as a gentleman addresses a lady.’
‘Very well.’ He affected a drawl: ‘I say, Miss Rowsham, don’t you find rain is awf’ly wet and spoils one’s clothes?’
‘Oh, yes, Mr Tallant!’ she breathed, gazing at him adoringly. ‘How clever of you to notice!’
Alice was furtively sketching the dancers on the back of Rachel’s invitation, which she had begged from her.
She thought her sister rather distracted, and understood why when she spotted Angus in the crowds, with a small, very dark young woman on his arm.
She didn’t understand how things stood between Rachel and Angus, but she did note that Rachel had been walking about with Jervis Farocean all afternoon, so she could hardly complain if Angus was squiring some other young lady.
She just hoped they would be able to put all that behind them when Rachel came of age in six weeks’ time.
She didn’t notice someone come up beside her until a familiar voice said, ‘We meet again, Lady Alice. Can I persuade you to pause your labours for long enough to dance with me?’
She looked up and met Bentham Farocean’s smile with one of her own. ‘Gladly,’ she said.
‘I was wondering if you were the official recorder for this affair,’ he said, leading her onto the floor. ‘How is the art course going?’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’m learning so much. I’m taking special lessons, you know, from Ivor Wentworth.’
‘The Ivor Wentworth? I’m impressed,’ he said.
‘I must say, I’m always taken by the way he paints cloth – velvets and brocades and silks and so on.
They always look so real you feel you could touch them.
How on earth do you create the impression of the softness of velvet, for instance? I’m lost in admiration.’
‘We haven’t done velvet yet. But I have had one lesson on satin. It’s all in the light, you know.’
‘Fascinating,’ he said.
But it only sounded polite, and his eyes were on the other dancers, so she dropped the subject and said, ‘Are you making much stay in London? Have you another sister to bring out?’
‘Yes, Alexandrine – but she’s the last. So I shall probably not be in London much after this month.’
‘Do you only visit to bring out sisters, then?’
‘If I were free to follow my inclinations I’d live here,’ he said.
‘But I’m at my father’s command, and he needs me in the business.
I shall be leaving soon for Hamburg to set up an office there, and I don’t suppose I shall be able to come back very often.
’ He smiled down at her. ‘My salad days of heedless youth are coming to an end. I’m being forced into adulthood and responsibility. ’
‘What a pity,’ she said lightly. ‘But perhaps when you are mayor of Hamburg I shall be called upon to paint your official portrait, and we shall meet again.’
‘Is that what you mean to do?’ he asked. ‘Paint portraits?’
‘I don’t know yet. It’s certainly more interesting than painting landscapes.’
But his attention had wandered again. He was frowning slightly. ‘I shall be glad at least to see Jervis removed from the delights of London. I’m afraid he enjoys them too much.’