The Landower Legacy (16 page)

“Do you think Aunt Imogen will be going with Olivia?” I asked.

There was a problem. If she did go the whole plot would fail.

“I’ll make them see that the whole idea of a masked ball is that nobody knows who is who,” said the forceful Moira. “I’ll impress on my mother that chaperones must be excluded on this occasion. I’ll say we’ll only ask the girls who can take care of themselves. None of the starters, the just-out-brigade.”

We were all giggling at the prospect and gave ourselves up to the fun of planning.

“What will you go as, Caroline?” asked Moira, who was going as Lady Jane Grey.

“Oh, we’ve discussed that,” said Olivia. “Caroline thinks of the maddest things.”

“I rather fancy Boadicea.”

“You’d have to have a chariot.”

“I should love to ride in scattering all before me.”

“Talk sense,” said Moira.

“Diana the Huntress. That would be fun. Helen of Troy. Mary Queen of Scots.”

“Think of the costume.”

“None of those is impossible.”

We went through Olivia’s wardrobe. She had a beaded jacket with beads which reminded me of hieroglyphics. I tried it on and shook out my dark hair. I had come back to my original idea. I would be Cleopatra.

Moira clapped her hands. “It’s perfect,” she said. “With a long black skirt. Here it is. Try it on.”

She looked at me critically, her head on one side, and said she had a necklace which looked like a snake. It had belonged to her great-grandmother. “There is your asp.”

Excitedly we planned.

I was sure Olivia was more interested in my costume than her own, which Aunt Imogen had helped to create. She was to be Nell Gwynn with a basket of oranges as her badge of identity.

Thomas was eager to help—perhaps mainly to please Rosie. I think quite a number of servants thought I was badly treated and were eager to perform little services for me.

We were all waiting with the utmost eagerness for the night of the
ball. Moira brought our masks. It was imperative that they should all be the same, she said. They were large and black and covered our faces so well that it would be difficult for anyone to recognize us.

Rosie tried on our dresses and would not have needed much persuasion, I felt, to come herself; but when I mentioned this she said: “Oh no, ducks. It’s one of my nights off. I’ve got my own fish to fry.”

The arrangement was that when we returned she should let me in by way of the back door. Olivia would be dropped at the front door, which would be opened by Rosie in her capacity of parlourmaid—for she must return from her own night out by eleven o’clock—and she was in fact to sit up to perform this duty. Then Thomas would drive me round to the mews. I would then cross the garden to the back door where Rosie would be waiting to let me in, making sure that I was not seen.

The evening came. We were on the alert all the time while Olivia helped me to dress. She had taken the precaution of locking the door. Finally I was ready in my beaded hieroglyphics and my snake necklace. My hair, which had been dressed by Olivia, fell over my shoulders. I wore a headdress which we had contrived from stiff cardboard, painted red, blue and gold. It looked most effective, and I believe I did bear a resemblance—if a faint one—to the celebrated Queen of Egypt.

The dangerous moment had come, which was to get me out of the house undetected. We had eluded Aunt Imogen and Miss Bell; but the most perilous moments lay ahead, and I do not know what we should have done without Rosie. She it was who made sure that all was safe, and I crept out of the house to the mews where Thomas was waiting with the air of a conspirator. He bundled me into the carriage.

“Crouch down, Miss Caroline,” he said. “My, you’ll be the belle of the ball. What you supposed to be?”

“Cleopatra.”

“Who’s she when she’s out?” Thomas prided himself on his modernity and had all the catch-phrases of the day on his tongue.

“She was a Queen of Egypt.”

“Well, you’ll be queen of the ball, Miss Caroline, and that’s nearer than Egypt, eh?”

He laughed immoderately. Another of Thomas’s characteristics was to laugh heartily at what he considered his jokes. The trouble was that no one else saw them in that light.

“Now keep out of sight,” he warned. “Otherwise we’ll be in trouble, and Miss Rundall wouldn’t like that at all, would she? I’d be in the doghouse, I can tell you.”

We came round to the front of the house and Thomas leaped down to make sure that no one helped Olivia into the carriage but himself. Rosie stood at the door watching, all dressed in her night-out finery, and ready to set off for the frying of that fish she had mentioned. Olivia hurried into the carriage, nearly dropping her oranges, overcome as she was with excitement and nervousness.

Then we were trotting along to the Massinghams’.

Theirs was a large, imposing residence backing onto the Park, and carriages were already lining up at the door while their masked occupants alighted. Passers-by watched with amusement as we went into the house.

There was no formal greeting for the whole idea was that nobody knew who anyone else was.

“Ten minutes to midnight,” said Olivia warningly, as we left the carriage. “No later, Thomas.”

Thomas touched his cap. “I know, Miss Olivia. Before they take off their masks, eh? Wouldn’t do for anyone to see who’s who.” He was overcome with amusement.

“That’s the idea, Thomas,” I said.

“Well, ladies, I hope you enjoy it. You can rely on old Thomas to get you back.”

He went off chuckling and Olivia and I went to the ball.

The salon was on the first floor and it made a sizeable ballroom. It looked very grand decorated with flowers, and the musicians were playing as we entered. From the windows I could see the garden below— looking very romantic in moonlight. White chairs and tables had been set up down there, and beyond, the Park looked like a mysterious forest. I caught a glimpse of silver through the trees and guessed that to be the Serpentine.

I kept close to Olivia. Two men came up. One was dressed as a Saxon in a tunic and cross-over laces about his legs, and the other was a very elaborate gentleman from a long-ago Court of France.

“Good evening, lovely ladies,” said one of them.

We returned their greeting. One had taken my arm, the other Olivia’s.

“Let’s dance,” said one.

I had the Saxon and Olivia went into a waltz with Richelieu or whoever he was supposed to be.

The Saxon’s arm tightened about me. “What a crowd!”

“What did you expect?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if there are some uninvited guests here tonight.”

I felt myself go cold with fear. He knows! I thought. But how? Then I calmed my fears. He was just making conversation.

“It would not be difficult to walk in,” I said.

“Easiest thing possible. I assure you / received my invitation from Lady Massingham.”

“I am sure you did,” I said.

It was difficult to dance, so crowded was the floor. He said: “Let us sit down.”

So we did, at a table in a corner among some green palms.

“I thought it would be fairly easy to discover who people were,” he said. “After all we do meet often, don’t we? The same crowd all the time. This ball … that occasion … and out come all the young ladies to meet the elected young gentlemen—all carefully vetted by cautious mammas.”

“I suppose that is inevitable in a small community.”

“You call this a small community?”

“The accepted social circle is not very large.”

“Are you surprised when you consider the qualifications one must have to enter it?”

“I didn’t say I was surprised. I was merely offering an explanation.”

“Have you guessed who I am?”

“No.”

“Nor have I guessed you. I know the young lady you were with though. I’ve met her before.”

“You mean …”

“Didn’t you know? I thought you came together. But I suppose you just met on the way. She was Olivia Tressidor. I’m sure of it.”

“How can you be sure? She was heavily masked like the rest of us.”

He laughed. “I’m still puzzling over you. I intend to discover before masks off.”

A man had come over to us.

“Cedric the Saxon,” he said, “are you being tiresome to the noble Queen?”

We laughed.

“I was trying to probe her disguise.”

The other sat down with us and leaned his elbows on the table looking at me intently. He was dressed as a cavalier. There were several cavaliers present.

“That’s part of the game is it not?” said the cavalier. “To guess who’s who before the final revelation?”

“I wagered Tom Crosby that I would discover the identity of more of our young ladies than he does,” said the Saxon.

“At least,” I put in, “we now know you are not Tom Crosby. You have betrayed that much.”

“Ah, my dear and most gracious Queen, how do you know that I did not say that to deceive you? What if I am Tom Crosby?”

“Anyone would know you were not Tom Crosby,” said the cavalier. “I wish you luck with your gamble. Why don’t we dance?”

He had bowed to me and I stood up. I was rather glad to escape from Cedric the Saxon who had probed Olivia’s disguise so quickly. I thought he was too inquisitive and I wondered whether he had an idea that I was not one of the circle.

The cavalier was a good dancer. I was quite good too, for a great deal of time had been devoted to that social grace at the finishing school.

We danced in silence. In any case there was too much noise and much suppressed laughter. I glanced at a Japanese lady far too large for a kimono; she was fluttering her fan in a very coquettish manner towards a portly Henry the Eighth. My companion followed my gaze and laughed. “A rather incongruous combination,” he said. “I wonder how the geisha girl strayed into the Tudor Court.”

We had stopped dancing and were close to a window.

“It looks inviting in the garden,” he said.

I agreed that it did.

“Let’s go,” he said.

So we slipped away. It was certainly very pleasant out of doors. He led me to one of the white tables and we sat down.

“You puzzle me,” he said. “I don’t believe I have ever met you before.”

“You probably did not notice me.”

“That’s what puzzles me. I am sure I should have noticed you.”

“I don’t know why.”

“Come, that’s scarcely worthy of the serpent of old Nile. You look the part to perfection, by the way.”

I sat back in my chair. I was beginning to feel a great excitement. It
was the atmosphere; the people in their masks; the balmy evening; the moonlight on the Park; the soft music which was coming from the salon. And perhaps the fact that I was not supposed to be here. It made the evening such an adventure.

I felt bold. These young men must discuss the girls whom they all knew because they were invited to every social function. I could imagine that Cedric the Saxon was not the only one who made bets about the girls. I was amused. None would guess who I was for the simple reason that none of them had ever met me before.

I said: “Your companions in arms are here in force tonight.”

“Rallying against those despicable Roundheads.”

“I saw only one of those among all the cavaliers. Who are you? Rupert of the Rhine?”

“I didn’t aspire so high,” he said. “I’m just an ordinary servant of the King, ready to defend him against the Parliament. Is it not pleasant here, Your Highness? I am not quite sure whether that is the right way to address a Queen of Egypt.”

“Highness will do until you find out.”

“Had I known I was to meet you I should have come as Mark Antony. Or perhaps Julius Caesar.”

“I daresay Caesar will appear sometime tonight.”

“I shall have to be careful then. What chance would a mere cavalier have against him?”

“It would depend on the cavalier,” I said pertly.

Some couples had already begun to dance in the garden.

“Shall we?” he said. “Did you not find our steps fitted perfectly?”

“I thought we performed quite well together.”

“How glad I am that I discovered you and rescued you from that boring Saxon.”

“I was not finding him boring—probing rather.”

“The Saxons were very crude. Didn’t they paint their faces with woad?”

“No, that was the ancient Britons.”

“The Saxons were almost as bad. Not refined in their tastes as the cavaliers were. I’m surprised at James Eliot coming as a Saxon. I thought he would have wanted to be something more grand—the Great Cham or Marco Polo or something, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh … I don’t know.”

“I recognized him at once, didn’t you?”

“N … no.”

“You didn’t! I’m surprised. I thought it was obvious. At an affair like this you can guess most people. Their voices … the way they stand, the way they walk. I suppose it is because we all meet so frequently. But you, my dear gracious Queen, are the enigma. I don’t think we can have met before. I am wondering if you will be very kind and lift the edge of your mask.”