The streets shimmered in the heat of a London July; May felt stifled by the heavy atmosphere inside the enclosed brougham . Conscious of tendrils of hair clinging damply to the back of her neck she glanced resentfully at the regulation one-and-a-half inch of open window that was all Lady Clarence would allow in Town. It admitted not the slightest movement of air on this burning day.
‘My dear, your hat is slightly disarranged.’
Lady Clarence, still as immaculately groomed as when they had set out, and apparently impervious to the heat, inclined her head towards her step-daughter. May, knowing it was hopeless before she spoke, nevertheless made her bid for freedom.
‘Oh, Step-mamma, mayn’t we just leave cards for the rest of our calls? It’s so hot!’
Displeasure registered briefly on Lady Clarence’s face.
‘Certainly not, May. What has become of your manners? And please adjust your hat.’
May removed her gloves and re-settled the confection of roses, mimosa and lace atop its base of fine white straw so that it tilted forward at the angle decreed by Lady Clarence as becoming yet modest on an unmarried girl. When her step-mother had given a nod of satisfaction she resumed her gloves and sat still again, back held straight and facing forwards. Lady Clarence’s lids were lowered, but May cast only sidelong glances at the traffic outside: she knew from past experience that the slightest deviation in her behaviour would be instantly corrected.
Her step-mother’s hat, of course, needed no adjustment. Indeed, thought May, it would be a very strong-minded hat which dared to shift one fraction of an inch from its position once placed there by the unbending Fenton and approved by Lady Clarence herself. Why, that very hat, which May had seen before its purchase, then gay and delicate on the head of a pretty model at Paquin’s, had now taken on some of the stern immobility of Lady Clarence’s Grecian features. The wide brim, flicked up on the left side so that the brown and pink velvet ribbons made a soft massy bow against the hair, had lost its light charm and now looked, in some curious way, as though it were fixed firmly onto a frame of whalebone. Poor Lady Clarence! May felt a flash of sympathy for her unyielding step-mother: she and Emily had long ago realised that her only lapse into anything approaching frivolity was in the choosing of her hats; but it was no use, however delightful her choices for May and Emily her own selections were defeated as soon as they were set on the iron-rigid waves of her coiffure.
At this thought May turned instinctively to catch the eye of her accustomed companion, only to be jolted into the unpleasant realisation that there was no Emily beside her now. Her step-sister was at the other end of the country. Even Lady Clarence had had to bow to the exigencies of the Indian Army and arrange an unfashionably early wedding so that William’s mother could present her new daughter-in-law at the first of the May Courts, thus leaving the bride time to fulfil her duties to her new relatives before quitting the country. As soon as the round of visits was over there would be only a brief weekend in Suffolk before Emily and William left for India.
India! A wave of loneliness swept over May. So far away, for years, and the climate – Amy Talbot’s sister had died in India, just wasted away in the heat, they said, and here she was, complaining about the temperature of an English summer. She spoke impulsively.
‘It will be so hot for Emily, in India, and she always found this weather so trying!’
Lady Clarence blinked, and May realised that her daughter would not have been far from her thoughts either; she sensed a rare moment of sympathy between them. In an unusual gesture Lady Clarence leant forward and placed her gloved hand over May’s.
‘Captain Target assured me that he would send her up to the hill stations the minute the temperature went up, my dear. He said the climate in Simla was like a fresh spring day in England, and the scenery as beautiful. She will be completely safe there.’
Having waited so long to marry her William, May could not easily imagine Emily allowing herself to be packed off to the hills while her husband stayed behind on the plains, but perhaps it was different when you turned into a wife.
May smiled at her step-mother in reply.
‘She looked radiant on her wedding day. William will be a devoted husband.’
Lady Clarence withdrew her hand and sighed.
‘Ah, I wish I could see you well settled, too, May.’
At this moment, to May’s relief, the brougham drew up at Lady Bertram’s front door and Lady Clarence’s attention was distracted as James came back down the steps with the message that her ladyship was at home. In the little flurry of alighting from the carriage the moment of intimacy evaporated.
May followed her step-mother into the cool hall, up the wide staircase and through the double doors of the drawing room as the footman announced:
‘Lady Clarence Winton.’
With a rustle of silken skirts Lady Bertram rose to greet Lady Clarence; the latter then drew May forward.
‘My step-daughter, May, Lady Bertram. I believe you have met her before.’
Her ladyship extended a limp hand to May who pressed it with care: she had been warned before of her too vigorous grasp in social gatherings. There was a murmured: ‘Will you sit here?’ to Lady Clarence and the two older ladies gracefully arranged themselves in the correct posture of discomfort on the yellow brocade armchairs. Once they were seated May withdrew to a high-backed chair by the window, thus earning a wan smile of approval from their hostess, and a murmured commendation.
‘So nice to see a well brought-up young girl, Lady Clarence, in these days. Really, some of them are so forward, especially once they’re out of their first Season.’ She directed a carefully arranged smile towards May. ‘Let me see, is it May’s second Season? Surely it can’t be her third, she looks so fresh and young!’
Behind her answering smile May’s thoughts simmered: ‘You old harridan, you know full well I came out three years ago, since it was at the same time as your youngest daughter!’
As Lady Clarence deftly turned the conversation into less provocative channels a silent May remembered giggly little Phyllis, so much nicer than her mother. She’d fallen in love with a handsome young Guardsman – Egerton, had that been his name? No chance of a love-match there, though. Lady Bertram had bullied poor Phyllis unmercifully: she and Emily had found her in the conservatory one day, weeping behind the potted palms, and it had all come out. While Emily patted her gently on the shoulder and counselled patience, May had advised immediate elopement. Phyllis had sobbed harder.
‘It’s all right for you, May, you’ll have all that money, but Henry only has three hundred a year, and Mamma says Papa will cut me off without a penny if I marry him.’
Prudence, or Lady Bertram, had prevailed, and three months later Phyllis had married Lord Poole’s eldest son, at whom she’d always poked fun because he had spots and could talk of nothing but his dogs. Phyllis never giggled now, May noticed; she only hoped she had come to like dogs.
As these thoughts flitted through her mind the exchange of meaningless platitudes continued to flow inexorably on until the allotted time of the call was up. Lady Clarence’s sense of timing had always been a source of wonderment to her daughters: there was no covert glance at her watch, but May knew from careful checks kept by Emily and herself in the past that exactly fifteen minutes would have elapsed between her seating herself and her rising, and this without any awkward break in the conversation. May could only marvel at the sense of discipline which had brought such precision and skill to the pointless ritual of calling. She and Emily had speculated that when other women were relaxing in their boudoirs idly turning the pages of the latest issue of ‘The Lady’s Realm’, Lady Clarence must have been sitting, upright on a chair, watch in hand, learning how to time herself to exactly fifteen minutes.
Now, as in some carefully rehearsed ballet, the three women rose as one; Lady Clarence and Lady Bertram touched hands again; May moved forward and took her hostess’ soft fingers, squeezing them firmly this time – third Season, indeed, and what of poor Phyllis – noting with pleasure her Ladyship’s faint moue of distaste. Lady Bertram advanced with her guests the regulation one step towards the door, now held open by the footman; May followed her step-mother out, down the staircase and into the hall, where there was only the briefest of pauses while Lady Clarence with practised ease produced her husband’s cards from somewhere about her person and dropped them onto the waiting table. Then they were through the wide front doorway, out into the pulsating heat of the afternoon and back inside the stuffy brougham.
As soon as James had shut the door Lady Clarence spoke in her low but clear tones.
‘May, I thought you had got over that childish habit of shaking hands too energetically.’
May retorted, ‘I suppose I should have done, by my third Season!’
Lady Clarence frowned.
‘It is not for you to question the words of your elders. Besides, it is entirely your own decision that you are still unmarried at twenty-one. Your father has had offers for your hand, some of them eminently suitable. It is time you realised the responsibilities of a girl in your position.’
May made no reply: her thoughts were mutinous. What was the point, married or not, of a lifetime spent paying calls and attending receptions and never saying what you really thought and having to spend hours dressing and undressing and dressing again every day because one had a position in Society and that was how one filled it? At least men could go off and join the Army or sit in Parliament in between the boring dinner parties. Dinner parties, thought May, with a mounting sense of grievance, where you hardly had time to enjoy the food because you had to make polite conversation first with your neighbour on the right, and then, when the courses changed, with your left-hand neighbour, even if you hadn’t the slightest interest in him or he in you.
There was a loud shout outside and the brougham jolted to a sudden halt. May defied Lady Clarence’s stony looks to peer out of the window. A large wagon passed too close to the off-side and May heard a volley of curses. But their carriage merely jerked forward again and resumed its sedate clip-clop to the Countess of Woodbridge’s London home. Disappointed, May sat back again and returned to her thoughts.
More cheerfully now she recollected that no one could bully her to marry money, like poor Phyllis Ainsley, the future Lady Poole. Either on marriage or at the age of twenty-five she would come into the control not only of her dead mother’s considerable personal fortune, but also a three-quarter share of the income from one of the most profitable shipyards in Britain; then she could do exactly as she pleased. But could she, even then? With another plunge of her spirits May realised that she did not know one spinster, wealthy or otherwise, who was not as closely bound into the rules of Society as her step-mother; and certainly no young woman of her class could set up an independent establishment while she had a family and connections alive; and relatives of the ancient line of Winton were spread like a web all over East Anglia.
Perhaps she could go abroad? May’s one stay on the Riviera had been exciting at first, but Lady Clarence had soon met like-minded companions, and she and her ilk had then imposed their own constricting pattern. Even the forbidden territory of the Casino soon palled, according to Archie.
‘Lots of old fogies sitting round a table, eyes glued to the black and the red; you wouldn’t like it May, no real action, not your style at all.’ Nevertheless he’d seemed to spend quite a few evenings there, and May had had to beg ten pounds ‘for trinkets’ off her surprised father on Archie’s behalf. May cheered up slightly, remembering that Archie had said he would be going with them to Lady Hindlesham’s ball this evening.
She was even more cheered later when it became apparent from certain low-voiced utterances passing between Lady Clarence and her hostess at their next port of call that Lady Hindlesham’s was not quite the kind of house to which Lady Clarence would normally choose to take her daughter. May was rather puzzled by this, since she had heard Lord Hindlesham spoken of with respect – and why, if Lady Clarence had scruples, were they going there at all? But all became clear as they were leaving. Lady Woodbridge turned kindly to May.
‘I am so pleased to have met you, my dear. I trust that you will allow me to present my son to you this evening, he is just come down from Oxford. I don’t believe you have made his acquaintance before.’
May indicated the correct degree of pleasure at this suggestion, but Lady Clarence’s obviously genuine smile of approval did not bode well for the probable liveliness of Lord Woodbridge’s heir. However, May was intrigued, and the prospect of the evening’s entertainment began to hold more interest for her.