Page 26 of Mirrors of the Past

Chapter Ten

1911

Laurie looked at the girl in front of him, the moonlight and the lights from the ballroom catching on her hair and reflecting in her eyes. There were tiny crystals or something similar dotted across her bodice and skirt. He hadn’t really noticed them before, but they shone like the stars right now. He felt that he was in some surreal otherworld with a sprite or a nymph or something fanciful that Medora would definitely have known the name of . . .

But that wasn’t the issue right now, and he chased that thought out of his head and took a deep breath. This was Viola Arthur, for God’s sake. His nemesis! Why was he likening her to an ethereal sprite?

But even that wasn’t the issue, and to be honest he wondered if he was getting a little tired of fighting whatever his complicated feelings were about this girl.

No. The issue right here, right now, was that man he’d been so very close to punching, and what he’d been saying about his family.

‘Laurie. What happened in there?’ Viola asked quietly, breaking the strange, eerie silence wrapped around them. ‘What on earth did he mean by all of that?’

It was, Laurie thought, perhaps the first time Viola hadn’t screeched at him like a banshee. And for a few moments in there, they had felt . . . close.

‘You were magnificent. That’s what happened.’ He gave a half-smile. ‘I’ve got to hand it to you — that parting shot was an absolute corker.’

‘He’d been very rude about my sister.’

‘Not only your sister. My sister as well.’

Viola said nothing. It was an invitation to expand on the comments Richard had made, and Laurie debated whether he should take it or not. The silence seemed to stretch for eons, until Viola eventually broke it.

‘You don’t have to explain things if you don’t want to,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You’re right. It doesn’t.’

‘Good.’ She nodded and picked up her skirt. ‘I’ll go back in and find Sam. Perhaps if I stick by him all night, jossers like that won’t be able to talk to me. The problem is, Sam can be a josser himself and likes nothing better than flirting with young ladies. Perhaps I’m best-off finding Elsie . . .’

‘Perhaps.’ Laurie paused, then took a step towards her. There was a strand of hair falling over her face and he couldn’t help himself — he gently moved it out of the way, then dropped his hand back down to his side. ‘All I’ll say to you is this world is full of Richards and the more you get involved with my family, the more you’ll be drawn into gossip like that.’

She looked up at him and touched the lock of hair he’d moved. ‘Gossip like that doesn’t bother me. Unless, of course, you’re trying to warn me off? Telling me to stop choosing my friends the way I do?’ There was a challenge in her eyes and to his eternal shame, he found he couldn’t answer her or reassure her or tell her that was ridiculous and he wanted her to be friends with his family — he wanted her, in that moment, in that moonlight, to be more than friends, perhaps.

But he was, for one of the first times in his life, lost for words.

Viola waited a moment more, then nodded. ‘I see,’ she said coldly. ‘Please. Excuse me, then. But, you know — thank you for coming to my rescue and all that. For one moment, I thought we might be able to be friends ourselves. I can see, though, that you clearly don’t think that’s possible. And I guess I have to respect that. Good evening, Mr Teague.’

She turned and walked purposefully back into the ballroom, swallowed up by the colourful gowns and dark suits.

‘Viola!’ He suddenly found his voice and hurried to the door. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to her, but he had a feeling that whatever tentative connection they’d built in those few moments had fallen down like a sandcastle at the seaside. He saw her, walking briskly towards Elsie and Louis. A brief conversation ensued, then her brother appeared. There was more conversation and then Sam and Viola danced one more waltz, then left the party.

And in all that time, Laurie stood on the balcony, leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pocket, and never taking his eyes from Viola.

He remained there for a while after she left, staring at the way out of the ballroom, almost willing her to walk back in.

But she didn’t.

And even though he was, to all intents and purposes, alone with his thoughts, he still couldn’t make sense of any of them.

* * *

A couple of weeks after that dreadful ball — because it had turned dreadful, when she’d stormed out of that conversation and flounced back into the ballroom — Sam threw a curveball at her.

‘I wouldn’t mind staying in London a bit longer,’ he said to her one evening over dinner. ‘I think there is still so much to see and do here.’

‘That may be,’ she replied. ‘But don’t you want to go home?’

‘Hey, the young gentlemen from years ago — they did the Grand Tour, did they not? Across Europe?’