Dorothy Eden (24 page)

It was true that all doors opened to Miss Daisy Overton. Even her father, no matter how important it was for him to stay abroad for his health or his work, always came home for her birthday. Which wasn’t entirely fair, since he had been known to forget both Miss Florence’s and Master Edwin’s.

But Miss Daisy, the little foreign baby as the servants still called her (and she did sometimes seem foreign, with her chattering vivacity, and her restlessness), brought her Papa home like a magnet.

It was galling to have to be grateful to a child, Beatrice thought more than once.

“It’s your own fault, Bea,” her own mother said frequently in her grumbling voice. “You spend altogether too much time at business. It’s unnatural for a wife. Look at me, I scarcely left the house when your father was alive.”

And grew as dull as ditchwater and drove Papa to his account books night after night…

“I have a great many people to support, Mamma,” Beatrice said mildly. “I have a hundred and fifty employees as well as my family. We’re sending Edwin to Winchester and Oxford, did you know? And Florence must have a season. She wants it very much. She’s completely conventional.”

“And a very good thing, too.”

“But it’s a pity she hasn’t better looks. However, one hopes that by seventeen she’ll be greatly improved. Did you see that Princess Louise took the Queen’s Drawing Room the other day? She’s quite the most elegant of the princesses. I believe the Queen is failing quite seriously. It would be nice if she lived long enough for Florence to be presented, wouldn’t it?”

“I hardly think it will mar the end of her life if she is deprived a glimpse of your daughter, Bea. But I’m glad you’re doing the right thing by Florence. I was always disappointed you weren’t presented after your marriage. But by that time your father had you in the shop, and there you were determined to stay. Are you putting on weight, child? You’re beginning to look like a pincushion.”

“I still have my twenty-four-inch waist.”

“Well, don’t let yourself go, dear. William wouldn’t care for that.”

If he ever noticed her rounded bosom and hips, her neat waist, and her clear skin. Some men did. Indeed she had an increasing number of admirers now that she had become something of a personality. She was no longer regarded with resentment as an intruder in a man’s world, but as a deuced spirited little creature, and an amusing eccentric. That languid fellow Overton had done far better than he deserved, was the general opinion.

Added to these compliments which came to Beatrice in a roundabout way, she had recently received the biggest compliment of all. As the head of Bonnington’s, she had at last been granted the Royal Warrant of Appointment. It was high time this had happened, everyone said, considering Bonnington’s many visible displays of loyalty to the throne, quite apart from the goods supplied to the Royal Household.

So now it was permitted that the Royal Arms be hung above the front doors. The erection of that plaque was one of the proudest moments of Beatrice’s life. She kept wishing that Papa had been there to see it.

And William. But William was in Italy, and anyway he wouldn’t have been profoundly interested. Disappointingly, Edwin wasn’t interested either. He thought it a tradesman’s sort of thing.

But Daisy clapped excitedly, because she always unfailingly sensed jubilation and high spirits, and Florence said that her best friend Cynthia Fielding was quite impressed.

William did write to congratulate her, however. He said he was very happy for her, it was so satisfactory to achieve an ambition, and that he would be home for Daisy’s birthday. He was feeling extremely fit, he had progressed with his current book, and thought that he would spend the winter at home.

It was six years since Mary Medway’s death.

On his first evening home William said diffidently that he was finding the blue room rather chilly, he didn’t care for its northern aspect. Perhaps he would claim his half of their bed again. If she had no objection.

Objection!

Beatrice, overcome with surprise, burst out laughing.

“It must be because Mamma said I was looking like a pincushion. Not prickly, but too rotund.”

“A charming pincushion, my dear,” he said with his faint quirky smile. Sadness still lingered in his eyes, and he had a fine-drawn look that was moving and intensely exciting.

Beatrice found that she had to be flippant, otherwise her rapidly growing emotions would explode. She was so filled with pity for his shy tentativeness, with grateful love and surprise and joy, and, overriding all, her long-suppressed sexuality.

But she found enough remaining sense not to burden him with words of love.

“That is if the Royal Arms aren’t affixed to the bedhead,” he said.

“Come and see for yourself.”

She was as light-footed as a girl on the stairs. Even Daisy was not lighter.

But in the bedroom, in the dusk, he only said, “I’m so lonely, Bea,” and she knew that there was still a long way to go.

Yet not an impossible distance. He had turned to her of his own free will. He was in her arms again, and he found her physically pleasing. She had enough remaining sense to recognise that, too.

“M
Y FATHER ISN’T STRONG,”
Florence told her friend Cynthia Fielding. “He’s always had to spend a lot of time in milder climates. But it fits in very well because he has to do so much research abroad, in museums and art galleries. He’s writing a book on medieval art. He’s been working on it for simply ages. He hates finishing a book, he says. It becomes like a child to him. But that’s a good thing, really, because it keeps him happily occupied while my mother’s at the shop.”

“Lucky you, getting all your blankets and table linen and things for nothing.”

“Do we? I suppose we do. Sordid commerce!” Florence giggled. “Now I sound like Edwin whom I despise for being a snob. Cynthia, you will come to my ball, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, if you ask me.”

“I was only thinking—some people think we’re just in trade, you know. But Overton House has been in Papa’s family for generations, and the Overtons have mostly been terribly respectable. All those Generals and Admirals with their decorations. That cancels out the trade side a bit, doesn’t it? Mamma says there hasn’t been a real ball here since my Aunt Caroline died when she was only seventeen. She would have been a great beauty, they said. Daisy’s supposed to be like her, but I’m not.”

“You’re a great rattle, Flo dear,” Cynthia said.

“Only with people I know well,” Florence sighed. “I get paralysed in company, because I know I’m always being compared unfavourably to Daisy. How on earth am I to be a success at my own coming-out ball?”

“Shall I bring Desmond?”

“Your brother? Would you really? That would be the greatest help because Mamma keeps complaining that I don’t know enough young men.”

“Desmond isn’t good-looking. None of us Fieldings are, with our big noses.” Actually that was one reason why Cynthia was Florence’s friend, because she wasn’t inhibitingly glamorous. “But he looks rather well in full dress uniform. His regiment is leaving for India shortly, that’s the only trouble.”

“I expect he’s a mad philanderer.”

“Desmond! Oh, no, he has
ideals
about women! Isn’t it killing! But he’s only nineteen and regimental life will cure that nonsense, Papa says.”

“I don’t think it’s nonsense at all. I think it’s rather nice.”

“Having ideals? Except for the women who have to live up to them. Does your mother, for instance? Because your father looks madly romantic and idealistic.”

Florence frowned. She was anxious to be absolutely honest.

“I don’t think Papa would have put Mamma on a pedestal. I mean, she’s so practical, and she couldn’t ever have been beautiful. Papa must have married her for her good qualities. And her money, of course.”

Florence had once heard a customer in Bonnington’s say to her friend, “If you could think of her without all that money she’d look like somebody’s cook,” and she had known indignantly that it was Mamma who was being discussed. Well, it was all too true that Papa liked spending money, but he was also very fond of Mamma. Anyway, he was in his early forties, and so was Mamma. Who would be expecting romance at that age?

“Everyone says Daisy will be married for her looks,” Florence went on, rather wistfully. “With me, it will have to be my money if Mamma gives me a decent dowry.”

She hoped Cynthia would contradict her, but all Cynthia said was, “What about your brother?”

“Oh, he used to be a pretty little boy, but since he’s had to wear glasses his personality seems to have changed. He’s got moody, and he’s always in trouble. He has terribly extravagant tastes, too. He spends money like water, Mamma says. He loves good clothes. And guns. Guns are horribly expensive. He has a friend at school whose parents have a shooting lodge in Scotland. Edwin goes there to stay. He says the army will be sorry they wouldn’t have him because he’s a crack marksman in spite of his bad eyesight. He could knock off a few Germans.”

“Why Germans?”

“Because Papa says there’ll be a war with Germany one day. He’s always said that. He says Bismarck and now the Kaiser have made Germany a military nation, and naturally a military nation wants a war, simply to display its prowess.”

“But against England?”

“I suppose. They’d want to pick the strongest competitor. There wouldn’t be much glory in only squashing little nations. Besides, the Kaiser is jealous of the Prince of Wales, and when he’s King of England matters will come to a head.”

“I didn’t know you were so interested in history.”

“Papa says countries ought to have foresight, not hindsight.”

“Then Desmond will have to come home from India to defend us,” Cynthia said flippantly. “Personally, I’d have more faith in Edwin. And anyway Desmond’s Colonel says we’re going to have trouble in South Africa over the diamond mines. Wouldn’t it be a pity to lose all our beautiful diamonds to those ugly Dutch women? Boers, or whatever they are. You and I can wear them so much better.”

“Not me,” said Florence. “I’ll only have a small string of pearls, while Edwin’s making Mamma foot his bills.”

“I wasn’t suggesting it should be your parents who bought you diamonds.”

Florence blushed.

“Oh, that’s different, I suppose.”

“Only don’t count too much on Desmond because he says already that he can’t keep up with his mess bills.”

Florence’s blush deepened.

“Don’t tease. I haven’t even met your brother.”

Florence had another reason for anxiety, although in this she was unselfish enough to keep quiet. One couldn’t be rude to an old woman, could one? All the same, it was a great shame that Mamma had allowed Miss Brown to decide on Florence’s ball dress.

Miss Brown was so
old
, quite sixty, and although Mamma insisted that she couldn’t be head of Bonnington’s Mantles and Millinery without keeping up with current fashion, she was still hopelessly prim and old-fashioned in her ideas of what young girls should wear.

She smelt faintly musty, and sniffed a great deal, pinching her thin nostrils together. Her eyes were sharp and querulous behind steel-rimmed spectacles. Her own clothes should have been given to charity long ago, she had worn the same style of shiny black dress with stiffened waistband and high boned neck ever since Florence could remember. It was true that she knew how to cajole and bully customers and that she never forgot a face or a waist measurement or a bank account. Apparently the great majority of Bonnington’s customers liked this, but they were growing old with Miss Brown. There weren’t many young ones coming in, Florence reflected shrewdly. Only the timid daughters of domineering mothers who thought it the thing to be dressed by Miss Brown of Bonnington’s.

There was a story that Papa had objected to Mamma’s wedding clothes chosen by a much younger Miss Brown. But Mamma had the greatest loyalty to people who had served her well, and Miss Brown would remain at Bonnington’s until she decided of her own free will to leave. Her aged mother had died some time ago, and she lived alone in the dark and dismal house in Doughty Street. Florence and Daisy had sometimes been bidden to take tea with her on Sunday afternoons. Florence did so with a good enough grace, because she was a docile girl, but Daisy had to be bribed with the promise of a penny if she behaved herself. It was understandable that Daisy wouldn’t care for an old stick like Miss Brown, but more perplexing why Miss Brown didn’t care for Daisy. She made no secret of the fact that she regarded the child as spoiled and selfish, and in need of a good “straightening up”.

Daisy who shone in that dark musty parlour like a newly lighted candle! Florence thought indignantly.

Florence, however, basked in Miss Brown’s approval, and was grateful to someone for liking her best. Not many people did. Therefore she accepted the style of dress Miss Brown decreed, an organdie, white of course, with yellow rosebud trimmings and a discreetly high neck. “To hide those dear little salt cellars,” said Miss Brown, her old dry fingers moving knowledgeably over Florence’s bone structure.

The dress was childish, said Florence wistfully to Cynthia. Sweetly pretty, said Hawkins. Too
jeune fille
for words said Edwin in the satirical manner he had lately cultivated. Exactly suitable for a debutante said Mamma. Papa made no comment. Perhaps he was remembering Mamma’s trousseau.

Daisy was another matter. She suddenly declared that she would not wear the dress Miss Brown had chosen for her, white muslin with a pale pink sash. A
baby
dress, she said indignantly, and she was ten years old. She simply would not wear it. It was too humiliating.

Daisy, by dint of determination and her sunny charm, usually got her own way. However, it did not seem as if she were going to do so this time. Mamma took Miss Brown’s side, and said Daisy would wear the white muslin or she would not have a new dress at all. Indeed, if she didn’t have better manners she may not be allowed to come down to the ball. Daisy, who even wept gracefully, hid her face in her handkerchief and whispered that Mamma didn’t love her. She had always known she was not loved.