Chapter 1; Part 3

We trooped in to the dining-room in a straggling mass instead of two-by-two, since there weren't enough of us to consider precedence, and Aunt Em directed us to our seats.  I was seated, for the first time in my life, at the head of the table, where my father had always sat, and my grandfather and great-grandfather before him, and their grandfathers and great-grandfathers going back twelve generations.  The sensation of seeing things from a new point-of-view was intensified, looking at the white-draped table from one end instead of somewhere on the sides.

It also put me in direct line of sight to my mother's best portrait, painted by Sargent shortly after her marriage, which hangs over the sideboard at the far end of the room. She looked so exquisite in that picture, standing beside the marble fireplace in the Great Chamber, luminous against the rich paneling, wearing a pale apricot-coloured taffeta presentation gown, decked in her court jewels complete with the famous Saint-Clair ruby tiara nesting in her piled-up auburn hair; there was a twinkle of gaiety in her eyes and a laughing little half-smile on her face, as if someone had just said something utterly delightful.

The companion piece of my father, standing at the other side of the same fireplace and also in court dress, his face glowing in ivory and gold above the severe black and white, as sweet and pretty as a girl despite the elaborate mustache, had already been donated to the National Portrait Gallery, though a copy of it hung over the fireplace in the study.  Both portraits had originally hung on either side of the pipe-organ in the music-room, but had been separated after Mummy died so that Pater could look at her in her accustomed place at dinner.  But then he never came back to Foxbridge again after having the portrait moved.

I sometimes wondered if it was only grief that drove my father from Foxbridge, or if want of money played a part.  After all, the marriage settlement turned over the income, but not the principal, of the greater part of her fortune to him, and then only until her death or the dissolution of their marriage.  When she died, her entire fortune came to me, the income to be mine when I came of age and the capital when I married; all Pater had left was some of the dowry and the income off the estates: a considerable sum, but not enough to keep Foxbridge Castle and Vere House going in the style to which he was accustomed.

But then, I had no idea what my father felt like.  He never spoke to me if he could help it; and when he did speak to me, he was brusque and offensive.  The only things I ever found out about him were filtered through Aunt Em or the newspapers.

Over dinner, I had Caro on my left and Lady Heard on my right, with Nanny between Lady Heard and Aunt Em at the other end of the shortened table (the table was very cleverly made, and could be expanded by hooking smaller side-tables into it, reaching anywhere from six feet to twenty-five feet long); it was only when we were seated that I noticed Claude hadn't joined us--I'd once again completely forgotten he was around.  One would think someone as gorgeous, and as goofy, as Claude Chatroy would impress himself on one's memory, but his personality was just so untextured that I didn't notice him at all unless he was talking, or if his place-setting was sitting empty.

"I'm so sorry I'm so late, Lady Emily," Claude gasped out, running into the room a moment later and skidding to a halt behind his chair, his face flushed and his breathing laboured, as if he'd run a great distance.  I was rather amazed by that, since his room was quite close-by, at least in relation to the rest of the house, "I'm afraid I fell asleep."

"That's quite all right, dear boy," Aunt Em beamed at him, gesturing for him to take his seat, then gesturing to Coldicott to serve the soup.

"I'd have thought you got enough sleep on the train, old bean," I said to him, wondering why he was so sloppy about his clothes.  His shirt-front was slightly askew, and his tie very poorly arranged--even before the advent of Pond, I could dress myself better than that.

"Claude sleeps like a dormouse, all he has to do is sit still and he's out like a light," Caro said to the company, then leaned over and said very quietly to me, "I think 'sleep' was a euphemism.  He may have been in bed, but he certainly wasn't sleeping."

"Oh!" I said, seeing her point: on further inspection, one could see that the flush in his face was not the sort that comes from mere running, but rather from more involved and pleasurable exercise; but then, with whom had he been 'sleeping'?  If he thought he could go around getting my housemaids in trouble, he had another think coming.

The rest of the meal passed without much in the way of conversation--at least not general conversation: Nanny and Lady Heard kept on with their debates of eugenics and evolution and ethics, while the rest of us listened, or pretended to listen while tucking into our really excellent dinner (we were very fortunate in our cook, she was as skilled with sauces and pastry as a trained chef out of Paris).  I had a feeling Nanny's role in monopolizing the dinner conversation was going to earn her one of Aunt Em's specialty non-scoldings, where she made you feel an absolute heel for something you'd done without actually criticizing you or even directly mentioning the wrongdoing.

But I figured, why not let them have their heads?  I'm sure they were both hungry for intellectual stimulation: though Aunt Em is by no means ignorant, her interests tend toward the ladylike--music and gardens, watercolours and gossip, etc.--while Nanny was more interested in intellectual pursuits; and Lady Heard, no doubt accustomed to the company of her own serious type at womens'-group meetings and in Parliament, had just spent two weeks with nobody her own age and sex to talk to but the Duchess of Buckland, who was even more exclusively domestic than Aunt Em.  It wasn't doing us any harm to have such elevated talk at dinner, even if we couldn't participate much.

When dinner came to a close, I got up and started out toward the drawing-room with Aunt Em, but she made a motion with her head to indicate that I was supposed to stay with Claude for at least a few minutes, being gentlemanly about the port and cigars.  But neither of us care very much about port, nor do we smoke cigars, so the intermission was rather pro forma.

"I say, old boy," I offered him my cigarette case, but he declined, "I don't mean to be personal, but what were you really doing right before dinner?  And more importantly, with whom?"

"Oh!" he blushed scarlet at having been caught out, "I was, well... you know.  With William."

"William?" the name was unfamiliar.

"The footman," he explained, "The blond, good-looking one."

"Aren't they all blond and good-looking?" I wondered.  I'm pretty sure that described most of the new staff, male and female.  I think Colidicott has a thing for the Germanic types.

"I don't know," he blinked with surprise, as if I'd actually expected him to have an answer, "I haven't seen them all."

"But really, Claude, it simply isn't done," I chided as gently as I could; at least he couldn't get a footman pregnant, but it was still a bit beyond the pale of civilized behaviour to dally with the household staff.

"I didn't mean to," he pouted a little bit.

"Not the sort of thing one does by accident, surely!" I laughed.

"Well, no," he picked up his port and took a hearty swallow, then made a terrible face that would have given my grandfather (who'd paid a guinea a bottle for it in 1885) an absolute fit, "But he sort of... I don't mean to say he forced me or anything, but... he came in to help me dress when I was just out of the bath, and he sort of started in on me without asking, and, well... you know.  It's not the sort of thing one can stop until it's finished."

"Yes, quite. I see what you mean," and I really did see: though I didn't much fancy him, myself (I prefer my men a little more mature, and a lot more intelligent), I have to admit he's a particularly toothsome morsel, especially out of his clothes; William may not have been able to help himself.  I would, however, have to find some way of communicating to the footman that he was not to molest my guests, without going through the usual channels of involving Aunt Em and Coldicott, "Shall we join the ladies?"

They weren't in the drawing-room, though, as I had expected: inspired by an audience, Aunt Em had ordered coffee served in the music-room, so she could play and sing.  Aunt Em is something of a musical prodigy, and if she'd not been born the daughter of an earl, she might have gone on to the concert stage.  When Claude and I came in, she was playing the harp and singing a wonderfully melancholy Irish folk song; but there weren't many instruments in that room she couldn't play: the pipe-organ, the piano, the harpsichord, the violin, the cello, even the Spanish guitar and the Elizabethan virginal.

When she'd finished with the song, Aunt Em went over to the piano, which was more centrally placed so she could take part in the conversation while noodling away in a sort of free-form medley, much like a pianist in a restaurant; without taking her hands off the keys, she motioned me over to sit by her--she could say a great deal with only her eyes, as big and round as my own though a different colour, soft silvery blue; it must be where I get the emotional transparency that Caro had teased me about.

"We have to get a girl for Mr. Chatroy," she said, without preamble.

"Get a girl for him?  How unusually accommodating of you," I smirked, "Do we always provide concubines at Foxbridge?"

"Don't be crude, Bassie," she tried to sound offended but couldn't hide a smile of amusement, "I mean for dinner.  I had all the seating arrangements completed for the party, but I hadn't planned for Mr. Chatroy.  I need another girl at the table, so he won't be odd-man-out.  Do you have any lady-friends you could invite?"

"I'm afraid Caro and Lady Bea are the length and breadth of my feminine acquaintance, at least so far as ladies I know well enough to ask down without their husbands or brothers.  Perhaps Caro can ask a friend?"

"Really, Bassie, now you're of age you can't spend all your time with men.  You're not in Oxford, anymore."

"I don't spend all my time with men," I protested, though since I live in an exclusive hotel for men, and belong to a half-dozen different gentlemen's clubs--as well as doing all of my, shall we say, informal socializing among men--she was very close to the mark, "I've met lots of girls, I just haven't got to know any of them terribly well.  There are so many of them, after all, and I've only had one Season."

"Well, never mind," she dismissed the question with a delicate shrug as she segued from one tune to another, "I'll ask Miss Brazington over from Haresden Hall.  If she's not available, I'll ask Lady Caroline to suggest a friend."

"Haresden?" the name sounded familiar, "Isn't that one of ours?  I seem to remember something about it."

"Sir Lionel's family have had the leasehold for three generations; but yes, it's part of the Foxbridge estate, a few miles upriver."

"Oh, I remember!  Mummy brought me along when she and Pater went to visit there, once.  I remember because I asked why it was called Haresden when hares don't live in dens, they live in warrens.  I don't remember the Brazingtons, though.  Do they not hunt?" the Cotswold Hunt was pretty much the only time I met the neighbouring gentry.

"Sir Lionel used to hunt, but he lost a leg in the War, poor man, and can't sit a horse anymore.  And the animal strong enough to carry Lady Brazington over a jump hasn't been bred yet," she said cattily, "Miss Brazington rides, but she's one of those sentimental girls who feel sorry for the fox."

"Well, they are awfully cute--when they're not eviscerating hens," I laughed.  One usually only met such girls in Town, country life tends to afford girls a more realistic view of Dame Nature's habits.

"She is otherwise exceptionally intelligent. Nanny met her at Shrewsbury College when she went to Oxford for the Gaudy.  She's reading history."

"A University girl?" I gasped in mock-horror, teasing Aunt Em, "Is that quite suitable?"

"Mockery ill-suits you, Sebastian," she spared me a withering glance before changing tunes again, "I'd hate to think where your education would be if Nanny hadn't been to Oxford."

"Well, yes, you know I was only joking," I put down my coffee and raised my voice a little so the subject of our conversation could hear me, "My tutor at Eton was very impressed with how well-prepared I was when I came.  He said I was better-educated than the boys who came in from prep schools."

"Michelangelo couldn't make a statue from shale," Nanny said in one of her rare, roundabout, and obscure compliments, which made me blush a little.

"It would be a silly thing to do, certainly," Caro said, and I couldn't tell if she was making fun of Nanny, of Aunt Em, or of me.  I was still learning to understand her sense of humour.

"Would anyone care to play bridge?" Aunt Em stopped playing and turned on the stool to face the company.

(Something something something...end the chapter somehow, TBD)