The Summer Before the War (36 page)

“Let's not talk,” said Hugh. “Let's drink our champagne. And then may I have the honor of the entire next set?” Perhaps it was the champagne, but Beatrice felt herself blush like a girl in her first season as she fumbled for her dance card. Hugh had just taken the little silver pencil when a voice called to them from across the room and Beatrice saw a gloved hand waving a dance card and a white ostrich feather fan.

“Hullo, Hugh, surprise, surprise!” said the owner of the fan. A girl of no more than nineteen, decked in a teal blue ball gown and silver shoes, was smiling at him with complete confidence that her surprise was a joyous one. “I've come to surprise you.”

“Miss Nash,” said Hugh, looking distinctly flustered. “May I present Miss Lucy Ramsey, daughter of Sir Alex Ramsey, my surgeon?”

“How do you do,” said Beatrice, but the girl was busy hanging on Hugh's arm and gazing up into his face.

“Oh, Hugh, isn't it the most delightful surprise?” she asked. “I had no idea that the Hartleys' weekend house was so near to Rye. We are in Bexhill, and my friend Jemima Hartley and I have been all day on the promenade selling flag pins; and we had to give the white feather to no fewer than three insolent fellows who insisted on proposing to us even though they were not in uniform.”

“Good grief,” said Hugh, eyeing her fan as if for holes. “I hope you don't plan to start handing them out here.”

“Don't worry, these are ostrich and much too valuable,” she said. “Anyway, as soon as I saw a handbill for your festivities, I just insisted that we drive over this evening to see you.”

“I am shocked,” said Hugh. “And delighted, of course. I must introduce you to my aunt and uncle.”

“I'm only sorry we did not arrive earlier,” said Lucy. “I do hope you haven't committed yourself to every country damsel in the room?”

“I believe Mr. Grange is free of any obligations,” said Beatrice, smiling as wide as she could manage while she quelled an unexpected surge of disappointment. “I wish you both a very pleasant evening, Miss Ramsey.”

As she walked away, she heard Lucy Ramsey say, “Oh, Hugh, were you unwilling to dance in my absence? How romantic of you!”

Refusing to give in to an unhappiness to which she was not in any way entitled, Beatrice scratched Hugh's name from her dance card and made sure to smilingly accept other partners. But when Mr. Dimbly took her out for the quadrille, she found herself scanning the room for Hugh's face, and when Mr. Kent asked her to polka, she spent the entire dance asking him about Hugh and Daniel as small boys and remembering only the bits about Hugh. She found it difficult to make conversation while looking over her shoulder to see Hugh and Lucy whirling their way through a suite of country dances. The girl was pretty and flirtatious, and had a tinkling laugh that traveled, despite the loud orchestra and the roar of conversation. Beatrice could fault her for appearing less than intellectually gifted, but as she waspishly told herself, even men as educated as Hugh seemed to prefer their women that way.

Beatrice became so distracted that when Mr. Poot appeared at her side, to request her company in a Scottish reel, she could not come up with a suitable excuse and so had to gallop up and down the room with both her hands grasped tight in his sweating palms.

“Dancing is such good exercise, don't you think?” he said. “While I would not go so far as to endorse such excesses as the tango, I do think it a most pleasant excuse for men and women to join hands in vigorous activity.”

“You make it sound quite excessive enough,” said Beatrice. “I am glad we are all wearing gloves.”

“Your sense of humor is as sharp as an arrow, Miss Nash,” said Mr. Poot as they made an arch for the procession of the other laughing dancers. “I myself am quite struck through the heart.”

“Perhaps you need to sit down then, Mr. Poot,” she said as they parted again to skip around the edge of the group.

“Indeed, let us slip aside a moment,” he said as they joined hands, and he pulled her swiftly behind a potted palm and the heavy swag of curtains onto a small balcony. That the balcony overlooked the rather smelly stable yard of the inn, and that Beatrice was quick to withdraw her hand and to shrink back towards the ballroom, did not seem to offer any impediment to Mr. Poot.

“I must beg the indulgence of a few moments of conversation with you,” he said. “Won't you sit down?” He indicated a small wrought-iron chair in the window, and she eyed it with suspicion.

“Thank you, Mr. Poot,” she said. “But just for a moment. I am promised to Mr. Kent for the next waltz.”

“I think they are offering a violin interlude,” said Mr. Poot, peering beyond the curtain. “We shall not be interrupted.”

“Perhaps some lemonade?” she asked, hoping to send him away so she might make her escape from his company.

“I will gladly provide you lemonade, or anything your heart may desire,” said Mr. Poot. “Only give me one moment to speak what I can no longer hide.” So saying, he dropped to one knee and placed a hand on his heart.

“Good heavens, no, Mr. Poot,” she said, her voice coming as an anxious squeak of horror. “I beg you.”

“It is I who must beg you, Miss Nash,” he said. “I had prepared to make the most rational of cases for the joining of two people in mutual advantage; but in the face of your beauty today, both as stately England and tonight, as a figure of grace in the ballroom, I find I am swept away.”

“It cannot be, Mr. Poot,” she said, doing her best to rise and make a polite withdrawal. But he grabbed her hand in both of his and she sat down abruptly. “I do not look for a declaration,” she added.

“I know it may come as a surprise, as you have long given up your dreams of matrimony for a lonely spinsterhood,” he said. “But you have captured my attention and my heart, Miss Nash. I ask you to become mine and make our fortunes one in the world.”

“Whose fortune exactly?” she said, and could not keep a sharp note from her voice as she recovered her composure.

“Your trusts, while I do not yet know their full extent, are no more than an agreeable boost to our common cause,” he said. “A gentleman's independence will allow me to pursue the law and thereby provide you with the comfortable life and, dare I say, enviable social position of being a solicitor's wife.” He looked to the ceiling in contemplation and added, “Perhaps in time, a judge's wife; perhaps a mayoress, like my aunt?”

“Ah, to be just like your aunt,” said Beatrice. “That is quite the temptation.”

“You make a gentle jest, I know,” he said. “But only think how marriage to me will render you free of your trustees.”

“You would control my portion instead,” she said.

“Have I not already proved myself your friend and advocate?” he said. “Did I not approve this very dress and pay you two pounds from my own pocket?”

“You made me an advance from your own funds?” she asked, horrified. He made a gesture of airy dismissal.

“I do not regard it as a debt,” he said. “Though your trustees have yet to reimburse me, I did not mean you to hear of it, I assure you. It was a pleasure to carry the obligation privately next to my heart.” For a moment they both contemplated the enormity of his actions. Beatrice felt anger rise in her with an intensity of feeling she had not experienced since the awful moment of her father's death. Such strong emotion was likely to produce tears, and she was determined not to give Mr. Poot the satisfaction. She yanked away her hand from his and rose from the chair, paying no attention to his proximity. Mr. Poot was forced to scuttle backwards lest his face be buried in her skirts as she towered over him.

“I decline your offer and ask you never to repeat it,” she said, allowing a hint of her fury into her clipped tone. “Please get out of my way.”

“There is no need to be so rude,” he said, scrambling to his feet, his face ugly with disappointment. “I think I have made you the most respectable offer you are likely to receive and you could at least provide some explanation of why a woman like you should be so quick to turn it down.”

“Mr. Poot—” she began. She was planning to lecture him on exactly why he was owed no explanation, but a rousing mazurka had begun in the ballroom and she caught a glimpse of Lucy Ramsey, skipping by and twirling under Hugh's arm, her ostrich fan sweeping in an elaborate circle. Her previous disappointment and her current rage seemed to die away in a long sigh. How foolish, she thought, to waste her anger on either the impossible or the absurd. When she turned back to him, it was with a resigned smile on her face. “I will give you an explanation, Mr. Poot,” she continued, drawing on a corner of her dance card and tearing off the piece to hand to him. “I must follow the fashionable lead of Sir Alex Ramsey's daughter, Miss Lucy Ramsey.”

“What are you giving me?” he asked, looking puzzled at her scribbled drawing.

“Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Poot, I am such a bad artist,” she said, visibly engaged in looking for friends in the ballroom. “That is my pitiful representation of a feather. Please be assured that I would never accuse you of cowardice, sir, but I understand the white feather is the only suitable response to give to any suitor not wearing the uniform. Now if you'll excuse me, I see Miss Devon is looking for me.”

“It is so nice to sit and watch the young people dance, is it not?” said Miss Devon, when Beatrice had sat down. The Misses Porter, who had brought their knitting, nodded in agreement. “I am too old for it myself, and I would not put myself forward when there are so many young ladies, but it is a pleasure to see all the amusement and to have a little supper, no?” she added. Having so lately both inflicted and suffered romantic rejection, Beatrice did not quite know how to respond. A sudden glimpse of her future, sitting by the wall with a dowdy posy of feathers on her head, nodding along to the music while others danced, made her blanch. She had long maintained no interest in marriage, but perhaps she had not properly considered the full implications of the spinster life.

When an extra waltz was announced and Lucy went onto the dance floor on the arm of a captain with a large moustache, Beatrice kept her eyes on the floor and hoped that by winding a ball of wool for the Misses Porter she might discourage any gentlemen from importuning her. But Hugh's shoes arrived on the polished boards, and when she looked up, he smiled and offered his hand.

As she surrendered to the delight of sweeping around the room, her dress swinging about her like a bell, she turned her face to his and both of them were soon laughing as she gave him a brief and comic version of Mr. Poot's declaration.

“Daniel will insist we challenge him to a duel,” said Hugh. “But I think I can get Harry Wheaton to thrash the bounder instead.”

“No, no, you are sworn to secrecy,” she said. “I do not wish to humiliate the man; I only thought I would die if I could not tell someone.”

“Why does everyone burden me with their secrets?” asked Hugh. “It's an unfair slur on my character to always be considered dependable.”

The dance floor could barely contain the crush of so many waltzing couples, and the crowd squeezed them out to dance on a quiet colonnade. When they realized they were dancing alone, it seemed only respectable to sit out the rest of the dance on a small sofa in a flowered alcove. Unlike being penned into a window nook with Mr. Poot, it was entirely satisfying, thought Beatrice, to sit together quietly with Hugh and to feel the comfort of mutual friendship. It could not be more, and yet something seemed to hang between them, and she tried not to feel giddy.

“I would like to say that I think you are very brave,” said Hugh. “To have set up house and to work all alone and to live from the fruits of your own labor—I admire your perseverance, especially in the face of obstacles such as Mr. Poot.”

“I do only what is needed to keep body and soul together,” she said. “I have done so little for any cause beyond my own.”

“You have taken in another girl in distress,” he said.

“Her beauty and youth have made me much more popular,” Beatrice said with a laugh. “A dozen ladies would kill to take her off my hands.”

“You will deflect all praise, so I shall merely admire you in silence,” said Hugh.

As they sat together, the world seemed far away, and so she was confused and not quite sure who called for Hugh, or how Agatha was by her side, gripping her hand. Somehow they were no longer in the colonnade but in the inn's lobby, and a young man in a Royal Flying Corps uniform was speaking to Daniel, and Daniel slumped to his knees and Hugh grabbed to support him with both arms. When Daniel gave a howl of pain, Beatrice finally snapped out of her reverie.

“We just saw you all,” said John Kent. “How did it happen?”

“The landing was windy, sir. Hard gusts off the sea and he just clipped a tree on the way in and spiraled right onto the field.”

“Did he suffer?” asked John.

“Died on impact, sir,” said the young officer. “Aeroplane went up like a bomb. We're all pretty cut up about it.” He wiped his eyes, and John signaled to someone from the inn and asked for brandy.

Daniel was rocking in Hugh's arms and moaning like a mortally wounded animal. Hugh spoke to him quietly, but his cousin only seemed to sink lower to the ground, as if he would lean over and whisper his grief to the rough carpet. Hugh looked to his uncle, and John Kent and the young officer went to help him drag Daniel to a bench. The brandy came, and they forced some between his lips. The young officer took a glass too and sat quietly on a chair, his cap on his knees.

“It was good of you to come,” said John. “I am sure you wanted to be with your men.”

“He was so keen to come up this evening,” said the officer. “He wanted to see his friend before we pushed off tomorrow.”