Sally Read online

  Sally had bought most of her wardrobe at a sale for Indigent Gentlewomen, balking at spending much of her precious salary on this masquerade.

  She was to travel by train to Bath, and there she would be met and conveyed to Banjahar Palace. Sally had still failed to look him up in Debrett’s before leaving, and so had only a vague idea of the family she was going to meet.

  The Dukedom of Dartware was pretty young by British standards. The first had gained his title in an obscure and undramatic way. With a handful of men, he had fought and overcome the small town of Banjahar in India, a place no one had heard of. He had also overcome the local nabob and had taken the man’s fortune in jewels as a sort of military reward. The most magnificent of these, he had presented on his return to King George II, who had not heard of Banjahar, nor did he even know where it was, but his royal eye was delighted with the presents. The king had also been imbibing a little too freely, and so he had made Colonel John Daumaunt First Duke of Dartware, Dartware being the name of the village over which the Daumaunts had ruled since the Norman Conquest. The first duke had decreed a stately palace to be built, and to celebrate his “famous” victory, he named it Banjahar.

  That brilliant soldier, Clive of India, Baron Clive of Plassey, certainly had been heard to mutter on frequent occasions that he had never even heard of Banjahar, and why had Daumaunt gone to war against the nabob when he and his regiment were supposed to be somewhere entirely different?

  But for all his failings as a military man, the first duke had proved to be a brilliant farmer and had made good use of all the agricultural revolutions of the eighteenth century, trebling his original fortune.

  Of all this history Sally was only a little aware. It was after she had alighted from the train at Bath that she got an inkling of what was in store for her.

  The magnificence of the carriage that was to bear her to Banjahar made her blink. Its crested panels gleamed in the dusty sunlight filtering through the sooty glass of the station. The footmen in their powdered wigs were at least six and a half feet tall, and the coachman looked as grand as a duke himself.

  The well-sprung carriage bowled out of Bath, and Sally began nervously to consider her position. Where would she eat, for example? With the family? With the servants? In the nursery with the governess? The day was very warm, and she sent up a silent prayer that her rubber wrinkles would not become unglued.

  Her worries and anxieties prevented her from admiring the view, and she was not even aware that they had traveled quite a distance until the coachman on the box shouted “Banjahar!” As she leaned from the carriage window he pointed down into the valley with his whip.

  Sally took one look and leaned back, her knees knocking in sudden fright. The valley of Dartware lay spread out below the ridge along which they were traveling. And set in the middle of the valley like some exotic gem lay Banjahar.

  Built of mellow portland stone, the huge mass of Banjahar, with its many towers and courtyards and pinnacles, lay spread out in the sun. Behind the house the lake and the many ornamental trees that set it off were a beautiful example of the work of Capability Brown.

  The carriage turned and rolled to a halt before two imposing gateposts topped with stone tigers lying on their backs with their paws in the air. This, as Sally was to learn later, was to symbolize the first duke’s successful battle, but all her frightened mind could take in as the lodgekeeper ran to open the gates were idiocies such as What on earth is the heraldic term for an animal in a stupid position like that? Rampant? No… that’s standing up with paw raised like the lion of Scotland. Couchant? No, that’s lying down. Oh, dear, I wish I hadn’t come. It’s like going to Buckingham Palace to play some awful joke.

  The carriage was now through the gates and bowling smoothly up a long, straight drive lined alternately with wellingtonias and statues of nude ladies with large hips, thick legs, and superior smiles on their faces. All too soon for Sally—although it was a very long drive indeed—the carriage was swinging around to stop at the main entrance under the shadow of an enormous statue of Pallas Athene on a pediment.

  Sally, feeling as frail as the old lady she was supposed to be, allowed herself to be helped down from the carriage.

  A small figure in black silk with a black straw hat and black lace mittens, Sally slowly mounted the marble steps, flanked on either side by slain Indians—executed by Grinling Gibbons—and felt her heart sink somewhere down inside her elastic-sided boots.

  I’m frightened to death, thought Sally.

  “I’m frightened to death,” said Her Grace, the Duchess of Dartware.

  “Well, you asked the woman, darling,” pointed out Mrs. Annabelle Stuart, a thin, acidulous lady. “You should have consulted me first. Fleet Street is packed wall to wall with grubby, encroaching people. I should know! When Jeremy—my cousin, you know—had that unfortunate affair with that chorus girl, they printed the whole thing all over the social page, carefully wrapped, tied, and delivered in genteel prose.”

  “Ugh!” The duchess fanned herself vigorously and stared around the room for support.

  The duke and duchess and their houseguests were seated in the long drawing room, which took up quite a sizeable portion of the ground floor of the palace.

  The ducal son, Paul, Marquess of Seudenham had gone out riding.

  The houseguests were Miss Margery Wyndham, an aristocratic beauty who had been invited by the marquess and to whom the duchess had taken a quite unreasonable dislike—hence the summons to Aunt Mabel; Lady Veronica Chelmsford, a faded beauty, and her thin, horsey husband, Sir Sydney Chelmsford; Peter Firkin, a friend of the marquess, famous for his good-naturedness and total lack of brain; and the aforementioned Mrs. Stuart and her husband, the Honorable Freddie, a thin middle-aged man with a white weak face, held together by an eyeglass.

  They were all dotted about the huge room in various chairs and clutching various drinks. Conversation was by necessity full-throated, since it was like trying to carry on a chat with someone at the far end of a rugby pitch.

  The duchess had just told them all about her invitation to Aunt Mabel and that she now regretted it.

  “I don’t see why you are frightened,” said Peter Firkin with a puzzled look. “Old bird, ain’t she. I mean to say, tells gels what to do about their lovelife, what. Anything the matter with your lovelife, Duchess? Haw, haw, haw!”

  “Not mine,” said the duchess, much flustered. “I don’t want to tell you why I invited her, but I was at my wit’s end, and it seemed the thing to do, but now I don’t want this stranger here. She’ll probably fix me with a gimlet eye and search out the secrets of my soul.”

  “Oh, I say,” said Peter Firkin awkwardly, running a finger around his collar.

  “Balderdash!” said Mrs. Stuart roundly. “Give her tea and send her packing.”

  The duchess moved her small, curved body restlessly on the chair. Everything about Her Grace was curved, from the droop of her eyelids to her thin-lipped mouth and well-upholstered body. She had heavy masses of pure white hair, which she wore fashionably dressed low on her forehead. It was the only remaining relic of her once considerable beauty.

  The duke was unconcerned about his wife’s forthcoming guest. He detested houseparties and slept through as much of them as possible. His head was hidden behind the Times, which rose and fell with each gentle snore.

  “Too late,” said Miss Wyndham with a light laugh. “I hear a carriage outside.”

  Everyone sat in silence, listening.

  The double doors at the end of the room were thrown open, and the butler announced in a pained voice, “Aunt Mabel of Home Chats.”

  Sally stood and blinked behind the plain glass of her gold-rimmed spectacles. The room seemed to stretch for miles and miles, punctuated at intervals by bodies with staring eyes.

  The duchess gave a little sigh of relief. There was nothing at all intimidating about Aunt Mabel. From her white hair to her neat boots, she looked the picture of mild English spins
terhood. Her eyes, behind their barrier of spectacles, looked surprisingly youthful and candid. Apart from that, she was certainly amazingly old and wrinkled, and that reassured the duchess even more.

  She bustled forward and took Aunt Mabel’s mittened hands in her own. “So glad you have arrived, my dear. We will have a little chat. You must have some tea. I shall introduce you to everyone later. Ah, but you simply must meet Margery—Miss Wyndham. Margery, do come over and say hullo to Aunt Mabel.”

  Sally turned slightly. A vision in blond lace was gliding toward her. Margery Wyndham was twenty-one and looked somewhat older because of her poise and classic beauty. She had heavy fair hair, caught in a thick coil at the back of her neck.

  Her complexion was flawless and her expression sweet. She had large, well-shaped blue eyes. Her tea gown must have cost a small fortune in priceless lace, and the heavy rope of pearls around her neck reached to her knees.

  She murmured a conventional greeting, and then Sally was borne off by the duchess. “We will go into the morning room,” said that lady, “for now that we have met I cannot wait to unburden myself. I am a great admirer of your column. So sensible! So forthright! I am sure you will be able to tell me exactly what to do.”

  The duchess’s rather high, penetrating voice echoed around the marble entrance hall as she led Sally across it.

  I should possibly develop a penetrating voice myself, thought Sally, if I lived in these gigantic rooms.

  The morning room, which was at the end of a chain of passages, was reassuringly small. Its French windows were open to a view of the ornamental lake at the back of the house, and the sunlight sent water patterns wavering over the pretty gilt furniture and brocade curtains.

  The occasional tables and mantelshelf were crammed with priceless porcelain. A coy tiger by Johann Gottlieb Kirchner leered up at Sally with its white porcelain eyes, and an indiscreet harlequin by Kaendler clutched the china bosom of his Columbine with frivolous unconcern.

  Two maids in long white starched aprons and frilly lace caps entered silently and set the tea things on a round marble table.

  Sally began to relax. The duchess was not formidable after all. The palace was rather overpowering, but with luck she would not have to stay for long. She settled back while the duchess dismissed the maids and busied herself among the teacups. To Sally’s amazement the duchess proved to be a “miffer.” The miffers, as any good etiquette book will tell you, are those socially unacceptable women who put the milk in first when serving tea—the milk-in-firsts. But she assumed after some hard thought that duchesses, being born at the very top of the social tree, did not have to labor over etiquette books.

  Sally wondered if she should remove her mittens. She knew—etiquette books again—that one was supposed to keep one’s gloves on except when eating bread and butter, and there was no bread and butter, only cucumber sandwiches, seedcake, plum cake, and scones.

  But the duchess’s opening remarks drove all thoughts of etiquette from Sally’s mind.

  “Now,” began Her Grace, after slurping tea with all the elegance of a coal heaver, “my problem concerns my little boy, Paul. Of course, he’s not little anymore, being quite grown up. He has become enamored of that Margery girl. And it won’t do.

  “Perhaps she is a trifle old for him,” ventured Sally in her quavery Aunt Mabel voice.

  “Not at all,” said the duchess in a forthright manner, spreading seedcake liberally with jam and butter before stuffing it in her mouth.

  Sally took the opportunity to eat a cucumber sandwich herself while her mind worked furiously. She glanced around quickly and then out of the French windows, where the formal gardens ran down to the lakeside. It must cost a fortune to run a place like this. That must be it! Miss Wyndham did not have money.

  “Is Miss Wyndham… er… not very rich?” suggested Sally.

  “Oh, yes, I mean, she is,” said the duchess. “Pots and pots.”

  “Perhaps she is mean and unkind?”

  “Sweet and thoughtful.”

  “Well, then,” said Sally, beginning to feel exasperated, “you had better tell me why you don’t like Miss Wyndham.”

  “She’s too good for him… Paul… my son.”

  Sally looked wise while her brain seemed to consist of nothing more than a row of question marks. The most she could hope for was that the duchess would explain.

  “You see,” went on Her Grace, “she would bore Paul. He’s always liked women with a bit of vice in them. Goodness knows, he’s kept a stable of them.”

  Sally was beginning to feel completely out of her depth. At first she had thought of Paul as a pimply young adolescent, now she decided he must be a young rake. Probably one of those young men who were sent down from Oxford and who settled down to making their parents’ lives as uncomfortable as possible.

  Stable of women indeed! The silly boy was probably trying just to alarm his mother.

  “You must be tired,” said the duchess sympathetically. “Paul is having dinner with friends this evening and will not be back until late. If you could perhaps see him then? Say you had a little nap now?”

  Sally nodded, all at once glad of a chance to escape. Her skin was itching under its coat of rubber wrinkles, the unaccustomed spectacles felt heavy on her nose, and her wig felt hot and heavy. She felt very young and rather scared.

  The duchess, to Sally’s relief, began to discuss fashions while Sally finished her tea. What did Sally think of the latest Nell Gwyn hat, the Camille Clifford coiffure, the Billie Burke shoe, and the Trilby overcoat? Sally murmured innocuous remarks between bites and then took refuge in her supposed age, saying she was too old to keep up with the modes. In fact, she had been too busy being simply Aunt Mabel since her arrival in London that the world of fashion had passed her by.

  All of a sudden Sally found herself thinking of Miss Wyndham’s tea gown. It must be simply marvelous to wear something like that.

  At last she was free to retire. A servant conducted her to her room, which was in fact more of a young apartment, boasting a sitting room and bathroom as well as a bedroom.

  The lace curtains at the windows floated in a light breeze. Down below, a swan cruised majestically over the watered silk of the lake.

  Sally undressed and took off her heavy whalebone corsets and gave herself a good scratch, which was what she had been longing to do since she left London.

  At first she did not want to lie down at all, but the bedroom looked very cool with its blinds pulled down and the bed itself tempting with its pretty white lace canopy. A pile of French novels, their pages uncut, lay on a table beside the bed.

  She lay down on the bed and picked up one of the novels and stared at it, unseeing. Suddenly the effort of reaching for the paper knife and cutting the pages seemed too much, and in no time at all she was fast asleep.

  Sally awoke with a guilty start just as the dressing gong rang somewhere in the great house. She scrambled from the bed to find that a maid had entered while she was asleep and had carefully taken away her dinner gown, had it pressed, and laid it out.

  Well, it was a bit hard to put on frumpish lilac silk of an antique cut, ornamented with swirls of jet embroidery, and step back into that pouter pigeon corset. It would have been so splendid to have worn something really pretty and to have gone as herself.

  Dinner was a surprising affair. In the first place, the food was remarkably pedestrian, considering this was a ducal mansion and this the heyday of the gourmet. It reminded Sally forcibly of her nursery days as she worked her way through courses consisting of such delights as stewed mutton, watery cabbage, boiled potatoes, shriveled smelts, and treacle pudding.

  Across the table from Sally, Miss Margery Wyndham blazed in all her glory. Her beauty was almost luminous, decided Sally, and her large, expressive eyes were shining with dreams.

  I believe she is in love, thought Sally. Drat it! If the duchess’s son wants her, then I can’t see her refusing him.

  Miss Wyndham was
dressed in apricot silk, cut low to reveal an excellent pair of white shoulders. Her hair that evening was fashionably dressed and frizzed and threaded with apricot silk roses.

  Sally was flanked on one side by Peter Firkin and on the other by Sir Sydney Chelmsford. Sir Sydney was a taciturn gentleman who gave his whole attention to his food. Peter Firkin addressed a few almost unintelligible remarks to Sally and then devoted his attention to Mrs. Stuart, who was placed on his other side.

  She soon lost interest in the general conversation, which concerned people she did not know and had never heard of. Sally studied the room instead. Its walls were decorated with delicately painted panels, and Sally’s wandering eyes rested on one of them, and then she felt herself begin to blush.

  It was a peculiarly graphic portrayal of the Rape of Lucrece. Lucrece’s large bosom spilled over the tanned and ravishing hands of Sextus, son of Tarquinius Superbus.

  Sally hurriedly averted her eyes and stared at another panel. In it Iphigeneia was dying in all her voluptuous naked glory, sacrificed at the altar to Artemis, so that the Greek ships should have a fair wind to the Trojan war.

  So she stared at her plate instead.

  She wondered what the Watch Committee would make of it all. But then art and antiquity excused all.

  “Jolly good that, what?” said Peter Firkin suddenly, pointing with his fork at the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. “Jolly ships, what? Look as if they could sail right out of the picture, don’t you know, eh, what?”

  “It is a very bold subject,” said Sally in her most repressive Aunt Mabelish voice.

  “Eh, what?” Peter stared blankly at the picture. “Oh, yes, haw, haw, haw. Hot stuff!” He let out a great bray of laughter, turned beet red, and buried his nose in his wineglass.

  He’s rather old to be a friend to Paul, thought Sally, observing him out of the corner of her eye with some irritation. She began to wonder about her forthcoming interview. She wondered what this rakehell young man would make of having Aunt Mabel brought in to advise him against marriage to the beautiful Miss Wyndham.