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7

OLD FRIENDS TO THE RESCUE

At breakfast the next day, Madeleine was alone. Last night’s dinner with the family had been a wretched affair, with no one speaking much beyond platitudes about the sudden chill in the air and the harbingers of autumn. Madeleine had kept her eyes lowered and only spoke when spoken to. As soon as she could, she had excused herself and returned to her room to add the extra unexpected twist of inconvenient inheritance to her plot.

So exhausted was she by the day’s emotion that Madeleine had eventually climbed into bed and fallen into a deep sleep, barely disturbed by dreams, except for one which lived in her mind even after waking. Three small swallows swooped around her room in dizzying flight, each with a calling card in its tiny beak. The first read I and then the second Love, but before she could read the third, the card fell from its messenger’s beak and spun off into space, leaving her with the tantalising question… who?

Sipping her coffee and wondering if there was anything of interest in The Sporting Magazine that awaited the young master of the house, Madeleine consoled herself with the thought of the afternoon, when she would go and pose for Mrs Wolfe in La Bambolina’s stage costume. She decided to spend the time until then writing her novel, the self-created world where everything and everyone operated to her design. In her imagination, she was free to live the kind of adventures she longed for and find love at last, not just in dreams.

Suddenly, it was clear to Madeleine why so many women turned to authorship; how satisfying to release female characters from the fetters of narrow horizons and limits of class and fortune; what a thrill to follow their adventures as they lived lives almost as rich as men’s.

As Madeleine was leaving the breakfast room, Edwin Lockhart appeared at the door, a sheepish expression on his face. ‘Oh Maddie, I’m pleased to see you. This is a poor business, is it not? Grandmama has truly thrown a cat among the canaries, so to speak. All kinds of squawking doth ensue. Would you care for a spin in the Park in my curricle, later this morning?’

Madeleine nodded her acceptance, uncertain if this was his mother’s idea or his, but prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

* * *

Just off Grosvenor Square, in the separate Brook Street mansions of Mr Shilton and the Wolfe family, emotions were also running high. The previous evening, both Corinna and Alick were tired, having settled the children and their nurses, Billy taking to his new playmates with exuberant glee. Seeing Ferdy again, and meeting Miss Payton and Miss Rose, had filled Corinna with urgent matters to discuss with her husband, but she had held her tongue, knowing he was not at his best after a busy day. She awoke early to the sound of childish laughter in the nursery on the next floor. She could wait no longer and decided to wake Alick, asleep beside her, his arm flung above his head in relaxed abandon. She leaned across him and kissed him on the lips. Immediately, his free arm came round her back and clamped her to his chest. ‘What a pleasant way to be awoken,’ he murmured into her hair.

‘Alick, I have to talk to you.’ She pushed herself up on an elbow. ‘I’ve waited all night and can’t wait any longer.’

Alick groaned and rubbed his eyes. ‘Darling Corinna, this sounds ominous. Could it not wait until we have had a cup of coffee, at least?’

She shook his shoulder gently. ‘Alick, something has to be done about Ferdy. You know he’s the nicest, most honourable and kindest of us all, and he’s put his head in a noose that is slowly tightening.’

Alick sat up too, his hair tousled. ‘What on earth are you talking about? Ferdy is everything you say, but he’s also an intelligent adult and he has made his decision as to whom to marry. Our place is to uphold him in that.’

‘How can you be so complacent about one of your best friends? Miss Payton insists on calling him Ferdinand, as if she were remonstrating with him. She’s stopped him wearing the clothes he loves. The clothes that maketh the man, that he fought at school to be able to wear, and now she has insisted he dress as if in mourning. I can’t bear it.’

‘Darling Corinna, why so upset? It may be Ferdy has decided he no longer wants to stand out in a crowd.’

Corinna was exasperated at her husband’s obtuseness. ‘He never dressed in his finery to show off, Alick! Those clothes expressed his creative spirit. His betrothal has suppressed all that. He is settling for greyness and denial of the sensuous in life.’

‘But you know Ferdy’s aversion to “operatic emotions”, as he calls them. Perhaps he has asked for Miss Payton’s hand in marriage precisely for the fact that she is a sensible rather than a sentimental choice. He was horrified by the passionate turmoil I suffered over you, and then when Raven was brought almost to the edge of reason with his love for Eliza – Ferdy blamed it all on the dangers of passion.’

‘That may have been true once. But did you notice the emotion that seemed to assail him in the presence of Miss Rose? His agitation, the softness in his face when he looks at her?’

‘What are you suggesting? Ferdy’s fallen in love at last, and it’s not with the woman he is to make his wife? That’s ridiculous. Miss Rose is a nice enough girl, but I don’t think her capable of ruffling Ferdy’s sangfroid.’

‘She’s not just a nice enough girl, Alick, there’s something very interesting about her. And her eyes have an otherworldly quality I’d love to catch in a portrait.’

‘But what you feel about Miss Rose is not important in this matter.’

‘Of course not. But Ferdy’s in love with her, I can promise you that, and it’s causing him all kinds of confusion and upset. His heart is rattling its cage and playing havoc with his peace of mind.’

‘Oh, Corinna! How do you know this? Through some mysterious alchemy of womanhood?’ He laughed and put out his arms to her. ‘Come and practise your womanly wiles on me instead.’

Corinna ignored him and said, ‘Alick, I’m afraid I’m going to have to break the habit of a lifetime, and interfere in someone else’s life.’

Alick let out a snort of affectionate derision.

‘No, don’t laugh at me. You know I’m not a managing sort of woman, but I cannot stand by and watch someone I love as much as Ferdy ruin two people’s lives. Well, three, really, as I can’t see that Miss Payton is much cheered by the thought of marriage. I don’t think she would welcome the hurly-burly of the marriage bed at all.’

‘You are outrageous, Corinna! You cannot claim to know this. Or is this your magical female second sight at work again?’

Corinna laughed and settled into his large embrace. ‘Don’t scoff so. My feminine sense recognised I loved you way before you worked it out. And you were grateful that one of us was clear-sighted enough to grasp the truth.’

‘That may well be, my witchy wife, but you and I know that Ferdy is never going to break his betrothal. He honours his word and that is it. He is the consummate gentleman. So how do you get Miss Payton to call it off, the match of the Season?’