Happy Birthday, Mr Darcy (12 page)

Carys wasn’t so sure.  There were areas of her life in which she demanded perfection but driving wasn’t one of them.  She wasn’t a public hazard or anything; it was just that her car received more than its fair share of bumps and bruises.

‘I’d better take a look,’ she said, getting out of the car and hoping nobody was watching from one of the hall’s many windows.

A light breeze caught her long, pale hair, sending it floating behind her like a golden comet’s tail and inviting the hem of her light summer dress to dance up, revealing slender legs encased in pale stockings.

Thankfully, the dark red paintwork and the wall were unmarked and Carys breathed a sigh of relief.

‘All right?’ Louise asked, getting out of the car and straightening her dress.  Carys hadn’t seen her looking so lovely for months.  Her chestnut hair had recently been cut and it clung to the contours of her faces making her look quite bewitching, and her sky-blue dress reminded Carys of a mermaid.

‘Do I look okay?’ she asked, noticing Carys looking at her.

‘You look gorgeous,’ Carys told her, remembering the old baggy jumpers and washed-out jeans her friend had been sporting ever since the break-up of her last relationship.

‘How did you get invited to this party, anyway?’ Carys asked.

‘I told you.  It was some business colleague of Martin’s  who got invites to distribute to whomever he chose.’

Carys narrowed her eyes.  This was the very man who had turned Louise into the queen of grunge overnight.  ‘I thought you two had broken up.’

Louise looked sheepish for a moment.  ‘We have.  But we still see each other from time to time.’

‘I don’t understand you, Lou.  When I break up with someone, we can’t even share the same town.’

Louise laughed.  ‘I got over him,’ she said.

‘And is he going to be here tonight?’

‘Would I be looking so gorgeous if he wasn’t?’

‘You’re not getting back with him, are you?’  It was a question but Carys made it sound like a command.

Louise smiled.  ‘Of course I’m not.  I just want him to realise what he’s missing out on.’

‘He was an absolute idiot to let you go.’

‘All exes are absolute idiots.’

‘Quite right,’ Carys said, locking her car and linking arms for the walk across the enormous gravel driveway.  Both of them knew what they were up to, of course.  It was the unspoken rule between girlfriends of a certain age that a night out would mean they were on the look out for that most elusive thing: a potential boyfriend. 

Carys shook her head at the word
boyfriend
.  It just didn’t sound grown-up. 
Partner
sounded too business-like,
beau
was too old-fashioned, and
date
was too temporary.  Anyway, that’s why they were both there.  They hadn’t spent hours agonising over their appearances just so they could feel good about themselves.  They were in full hummingbird-attire, hoping against hope that they’d find some rare nectar to hover around that evening.

They crossed the driveway, their shoes, as light as butterflies, crunching softly on the gravel.  However, as they approached the house, Carys couldn’t help feeling out of her depth.

‘Look at the size of this place,’ she said, each of her words filled to bursting with awe and anxiety.

‘I know.  It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

‘Who owns it?’ Carys asked.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Louise confessed.  ‘Oh my goodness!’ she suddenly burst in excitement.

‘What?’

‘I’ve just seen a deer - look!’

Carys looked out across the parkland which rolled gently into the distance and spotted a solitary deer moving like a ballerina amongst the long grass.

‘The only wildlife you can see from my house is at chucking out time at The King’s Head.’

Louise laughed.  ‘It is beautiful, isn’t it?  Can you imagine living in a place like this?’

Carys shook her head.  ‘Absolutely not.  No point trying, either.  I might get ideas above my station.’

‘But just imagine,’ Louise enthused, her smile filling her face and her eyes sparkling with mischief.  ‘Lady Carys Miller cordially invites
Cuthland Life
to her sumptuous home, Roseberry Hall.’

Carys had to laugh
.  Cuthland Life
was the county’s home-spun version of
Hello!
and each issue boasted some member of the landed gentry, eager to show off their twenty bed-roomed palatial home with swimming pool, gymnasium, and paddock filled with horses.

‘Heaven forbid,’ Carys said.  ‘I could never be one of those even if I won the lotto.’

Reaching the front of the house, they craned their necks to gaze in wonder at three storeys of symmetrical beauty, the dozen or so windows winking in the last of the evening light.  The stone was the rich red-gold that was used for all the fine houses of Cuthland and, on summer evenings, it seemed to glow from within as if it had been paid a compliment and was blushing with pride.

‘Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?’ Carys whispered, as they dared to approach the front door.

Louise nodded.  She was still smiling like an over-excited child but Carys’s smile was refusing to make an appearance.  It had been chased away to some unknown corner of her body by her nerves.

‘Come on,’ Louise said.  ‘Time to make an appearance.’

They pulled an old-fashioned bell and the door was opened by a woman wearing a black dress and cap with frilly white sleeves.  Drinks were offered and they were left to mingle.

‘These aren’t our sort of people,’ Carys whispered.

‘How do you know until you get to talk to them?’

‘I just know,’ Carys said.  ‘Their names, for example.  I bet they’ve all got really pompous names - like Ophelia and Horatio.’

‘Oh, and your name is so normal, I suppose?’

‘It’s Welsh - as well you know.’

‘I know,’ Louise grinned.  ‘It means
love,
’ she said, batting her eyelashes like a cartoon character.

‘Louise!’ a voice suddenly shouted from the staircase.

‘Martin!’ Louise shouted back, her obvious joy at seeing him worrying Carys.  ‘Carys, I must just say hello for a moment.’

‘Don’t be long,’ Carys said, anxious that her friend should not be sucked back into the vortex that was Martin Bradbury.  She watched as Martin bent down to peck Louise on the cheek in greeting.  Louise blushed prettily - a little too prettily for Carys’s liking.  When Louise caught Carys’s eyes, it was she who was blushing and she turned away quickly, trying to find some diversion.

The entrance hall, where most of the people seemed to be gathered, was like no other Carys had ever seen.  The hall of her own Victorian terrace was narrow and dark but this was wide, light and elegant.  A staircase swept up from the centre of the hallway before curving right, its bright wooden banister rail polished so that it gleamed like a mirror.  The walls were a pale butter and covered with paintings, mostly landscapes but there were portraits too.

Carys leant forward to get a better view then, wine glass in hand, began to climb the stairs, her heels clicking pleasantly on the white stone which had been left bare, its simple beauty glowing like fresh snow.

She passed a landscape of a ruined monastery overlooking a river; a pastoral scene in dark oils; and a number of hunting scenes with dogs carrying dead birds in their mouths.  Carys winced.  She’d never understood how people could gain pleasure from killing things.  But she couldn’t deny how impressive the pictures were, hanging in fine gold frames which caught the light.  How incredible, she thought, to live in a house like this.  For a moment, she wondered what it would be like to come home to a place such as Roseberry Hall.  Imagine turning off the road into the long, winding driveway lined with trees, and parking in the huge sweep of driveway at the front of the house.  It would certainly beat fighting for a car parking space in her street: a crowded suburb of Carminster.  And how strange and wonderful to be surrounded by beautiful things all the time.  She wondered if the owners ever got bored.  What if the paintings weren’t their choice but handed down from a forgotten ancestor whose taste didn’t match theirs?

Pondering these thoughts, she climbed a few more steps and gazed appreciatively at more of the landscapes.  It was all so magnificent, elegant and opulent.  She thought of her cheaply framed floral prints hanging on the walls of her own house and smiled.  Not that she’d swap them.  The gold framed oils she was admiring just wouldn’t look right in her place.

‘You like the paintings?’ a male voice suddenly broke into her thoughts. 

Carys looked up but was quite unable to make out the face of her questioner who was silhouetted against a huge window on the landing.

‘Some of them,’ she said.

‘These ones are better,’ the dark man said.

Carys hesitated.  It sounded like the worst of chat-up lines but, as Louise was still occupied with Martin and she had nobody else to talk to, she walked up a few more steps. 

‘Which ones?’ she asked.  ‘I don’t want to see any more dead birds.’

‘Well, they’re dead birds of a kind,’ the gentleman said, nodding to the portraits which Carys had spied from the bottom of the stairs.

Her eyes adjusted and, before she took in the portraits, she saw that the dark man was dark indeed: he had dark hair which was thick and short and eyes which Carys couldn’t quite make out.  Were they a particularly dark shade of brown or were they actually black?  But it was his smile which demanded her attention.  There was a sweetness in it as if he held a secret: a ripe, juicy secret which he was about to impart, and Carys felt herself smiling back at him.

‘Charlotte,’ he said.

Carys raised her eyebrows.  ‘I’ve never met a man called Charlotte before.’

His smile broadened and he nodded towards the painting.  Carys turned and saw a pale beauty staring out of a gaudy gold frame.  The eyes were bewitchingly bright in her pale face and she wore a silver dress which was low cut, exposing acres of luminous skin.  Her hair was fair and had been swept away from her face with just a few tendrils curling over her left shoulder. 

‘She’s beautiful,’ Carys said.

‘Lady Charlotte de Montfort,’ the gentleman said. 

Carys nodded.  She was none the wiser for the information.

‘She had two husbands, nine children and an uncountable number of lovers.’

Carys grinned.  ‘Good for her.’

‘And him-’ the gentleman began, pointing to a portrait of a handsome man adjacent to Lady Charlotte, ‘was Lord Nicholas de Montfort, her husband.’

‘You seem to know these people,’ Carys pointed out.

The gentleman shrugged.  ‘You could say I have an interest in them.’

Carys nodded.  ‘I’m afraid I’ve never really had much time for the aristocracy.  I mean, they’re a bit of a waste of space, don’t you think?’

The gentleman smiled.  ‘You think this house is a waste of space?’

Carys’s eyes widened.  ‘Oh no!  I didn’t say that.  This house is beautiful.’

‘But who do you think built it?’

‘Probably somebody who once leant the king of England a sovereign.’

The gentleman gave another smile that seemed very knowing.  ‘I take it you don’t agree with the monarchy either?’

‘Let’s face it,’ Carys said, ‘they’re all rather outdated and useless.  I think the French had the right idea -
off with their heads!
’ she laughed, and then she wondered why she’d said it.  She wasn’t usually so opinionated at parties and she’d surprised herself with the strength of her feelings.  Perhaps it was the wine speaking. 

‘I see,’ the gentleman said, good-humouredly.

Carys bit her lip.  ‘All I’m saying is that titles are outdated.  They don’t really provide a use today, do they?’

The gentleman shrugged.  ‘I imagine you could get a table at a restaurant in a hurry, or a free upgrade on a plane.’

‘That’s outrageous!  How could anyone behave like that?’

‘People do.’

‘But they shouldn’t.’

‘I agree.’

There was a moment’s pause.  Carys looked down into her glass of wine, aware of the gentleman’s eyes upon her.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘Carys.’

‘Carys?’

She looked up and smiled.  She was used to the baffled response her name always caused.  ‘Like Paris but with a C instead of a P and a Y instead of an I.’

‘C instead of a P and a Y instead of an I,’ he repeated.

‘That’s right.’

‘That’s pretty.’

She felt herself blushing which was ridiculous.  She wasn’t the sort of woman to fall prey to blushes.  She cleared her throat, determined to take charge of the situation.

‘So,’ she began, ‘are you going to tell me-’

‘Carys!’ a voice shouted up from the foot of the stairs.  Louise’s voice.  ‘Where are you?’

Carys gave an apologetic half-smile to the gentleman whose name she’d probably never know now.

‘Carys, come on.  I want to introduce you to someone,’ Louise said, her voice childlike with insistence.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, pausing for a moment.  What did she think would happen?  Did she think he’d beg her to stay?  Did she even want to?  He was still smiling at her: that knowing smile that was warm and unnerving at the same time.

And then she felt Louise’s hand clasping her arm.  ‘There you are.  Oh,’ she said, suddenly seeing the gentleman, ‘hello.’

‘Hello,’ the gentleman replied.

‘Come on, then,’ Carys said, giving Louise her full attention at last.  ‘Who’s this person you want to introduce me to?’

They went downstairs, their dainty summer shoes tapping musically on each beautiful white step.  Once in the hallway, Carys was ushered over to Martin and introduced to one of his friends.  His face filled with uncontainable excitement as soon as he saw her approaching him but the feeling wasn’t reciprocated.  Carys forgot his name as soon as it was told to her but managed to make polite conversation despite the fact that she knew Louise was trying to match-make her, and the fact that her mind was still on the mysterious gentleman at the top of the stairs. 

As Martin’s friend told her about his favourite garden centre for bargain bulbs for spring colour, Carys found her gaze wondering to the top of the stairs but the gentleman had gone.  She scanned the groups of people in the hallway and in the main room off the hall but couldn’t see him.