Debutantes Read online

  About the Book

  A century ago, marriage, and marriage alone, offered a nicely brought-up girl escape from the domination of her parents. Indeed it was the only path to freedom. That path led her to a Season in London and, the ultimate goal, Coming Out as a debutante. But along the way she had to survive a terrifying few months, a make-or-break time in which her family’s hopes for her could only be fulfilled through a proposal of marriage.

  For Lady Emily Persse, Coming Out means leaving her beloved Ireland and its informalities for England and its stricter codes. For Portia Tradescant, released from the boredom of life in the English countryside, it means trying to get through the Season despite the best efforts of her eccentric Aunt Tattie. For beautiful May Danby the Season is an entrée to a whole other life, worlds away from her strict convent upbringing in Yorkshire.

  Debutantes, Charlotte Bingham’s delightful and stylish saga, centres around a single London Season in the eighteen-nineties. But it is not just about the debutantes themselves. It is as much about the women who launch them, and the Society which supports their way of life. It is also about the battle for power, privilege and money, fought, not in the male tradition upon the battlefield, but in the female tradition … in the ballroom.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  May

  The Sale

  In Debt

  A Request for Payment

  Consequences

  The Bond

  Adoption

  May’s Appointment

  The Bargain

  Portia

  Aunts

  A Little Learning

  Betrayed

  Departures

  Down from the Nursery

  The Blue Beyond

  Shipwrecked

  Emily

  The Lark

  Magic

  The Fort

  The Note

  The Parting of the Ways

  The Abduction

  Entr’acte

  Excerpted from the diary of Daisy, Countess of Evesham, spring 1895.

  Extracted from the journal of a lady’s maid, one Edith Jenkins, spinster and servant to the second Countess of Evesham, spring 1895. London.

  The Season

  Courtesies

  First Footing

  Lists

  Picture Sunday

  Riding Out

  The First Ball

  After the Ball

  The Drawing Room

  A Calling Card

  The Set-Up

  At the Stake

  Curtain Calls

  The Triumph

  About the Author

  Also by Charlotte Bingham

  Copyright

  DEBUTANTES

  Charlotte Bingham

  BANTAM BOOKS

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON • SYDNEY • AUCKLAND

  for the boy drummer

  who married the debutante

  PROLOGUE

  Imagine the silence of a golden June afternoon when a whole city seems to be resting. Even those few who are out and about at this time seem to go by on tiptoes, past smartly painted carriages waiting outside fashionable houses, with blinkered horses dozing in the shafts, the cyphers on their harness glinting in the hot sun. Only the muted thud of a front door shutting in a house somewhere further along the street momentarily disturbs the thick curtain of silence which has descended and behind which everyone and everything would seem to be temporarily stilled.

  But appearances are deceptive, for this is London at the height of the Season in the final decade of the last century, and behind these tightly closed doors the destinies of the young are being decided by their elders over china tea cups held carefully in gloved hands and sipped at by lips that have never known any colour but their own.

  Duchesses and debutantes, dowagers and their daughters are always At Home at this hour, At Home to gentlemen of all ages who, carrying their hats and canes with them, are shown upstairs to their hostesses’ drawing rooms where they place those same hats and canes on the floor in order to assure their hostesses that their visits will be brief and that they are not intent on staying for any unwelcome length of time.

  Some of these men may later call at other addresses where this time they will leave their hats and canes with the hall boys as they would in their own houses. There they may hope to be received in the privacy of libraries rather than the formality of drawing rooms, not by exquisitely dressed mothers determined to make suitable matches for their daughters but by married women dressed in gowns of an altogether more intimate nature and with an altogether different entertainment in mind.

  But as far as our heroines are concerned this is to look forward too much, since these tea-gowned women in their libraries are not single girls but married women. For in this Society, at this time, the rules are quite clear – before a man may make love to a girl she must first be married.

  MAY

  THE SALE

  ‘It’s been sold, dammit,’ Herbert Forrester said out loud to the deserted hall before throwing the opened letter back onto the silver salver. ‘Of all t’infernal cheek.’

  At that moment a maid crept past, hoping not to be noticed by her florid-faced master.

  ‘You, girl!’ he called. The girl came to a stop on the polished wood floor, but didn’t turn round. ‘It’s all right, lass – you ain’t done nowt wrong. I just want someone to go and find Mrs Forrester.’

  ‘I think she’s down in kitchens, sir. Leastways last I saw of ’er that’s where she was, sir.’

  ‘What’s she doin’ down in kitchens now?’ Herbert Forrester muttered more to himself than the maid and picking up the letter again as if re-reading it might change the contents. ‘I’ve given her a dozen servants to fetch ’n’ carry and she still spends half her life below stairs.’ Looking up from the letter which he once again discarded in disgust, he saw the maid still staring slack-jawed at him. ‘Hurry on then, lass,’ he said. ‘If your mistress is down in kitchens, then go fetch her up. Straightway if you will.’

  By the time Mrs Forrester had been given the message, tidied her hair, and hurried up the service stairs through the pass door and into the morning room, her husband was on his second fortifying glass of sherry and on the way to recovering at least some of his equilibrium.

  ‘There’s bad news I’m afraid, dear,’ he said, as his good-looking, ample wife hurried in, closing the double doors carefully behind her. ‘That London house you set your heart on. It’s been sold.’

  Jane Forrester put one hand up to her face in shock. ‘But that’s not possible, Herbert, surely? It just can’t be. It was you what first heard of it being for sale and long before anyone else might have done.’ She breathed in and out deeply in her anxiety, now putting a hand behind to steady herself on the back of a high buttoned chair. ‘You had that many business dealings with Lord Elmhurst. He’s a gentleman. I don’t credit him to be the sort to let another gentleman down.’

  ‘But he has, my love. Here. Read this.’ Herbert handed his wife the letter and stood sipping his sherry while she read it. ‘To think,’ he said to himself. ‘To think what I tipped him. Everything from cotton to American railroad stock. I don’t know what. It’s thanks to me it is he’s out of that hole he dug himself. Well and truly out. And now this.’

  Jane read the letter once, then sat down in the chair on which she’d steadied herself to read it through again.

  ‘There’ll be plenty of other houses available, dear, don’t you worry,’ Herbert assured his wife, staring past her at the comings and goings in the city street outside. ‘It’s just that this sort of malarkey is a wretched waste of a man’s t
ime.’

  Jane sighed, putting the letter to one side. ‘I’d set my heart on Park Lane, Herbert. I’m afraid I have to say so. And on that particular, lovely house.’

  ‘Perhaps this is all a mite premature. Perhaps before moving lock, stock and barrel down to London—’

  ‘But now that the London end of your business is established—’

  ‘I know, dear,’ Herbert interrupted, holding up one finger as if not needing to be reminded of the facts. ‘I’m just wondering on the need for us all to move down there straightway as a family.’

  Jane frowned but said nothing. She knew well enough that, such was his nature, when her husband had suffered any sort of setback it was best to let him arrive at what were actually mutual decisions apparently single-handed. The fact was that they had both agreed that a family move to London would be the best way to introduce their daughter into Society.

  ‘Now I know the idea was to give Louisa the chance of making a good match,’ Herbert continued, as if reading Jane’s thoughts. ‘To launch her into Society, however you put it, in hope of her landing a big fish, and I’m all for that. You know that, dear. Like you I want only the best for our Louisa. Chances are that if we stay here in York she’ll end up marrying a lawyer or a banker or somesuch. Good enough but could do better. But even so, I’m not for rushing into things, as you know. Sometimes it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond. It’s not always such a bad thing.’

  Jane rose from her chair, adjusting the now out of date bustle at the back of her skirt before going to her husband’s side. She smiled at him, then took his hand and kissed it. Such a gesture, small as it was, was sufficient to remove the frown from Herbert Forrester’s brow.

  ‘I’ll be guided by you, Herbert dear,’ she said. ‘Like I always am. I quite understand if you think we shall be out of our depth in London.’

  ‘I think no such thing! Out of our depth indeed? I were simply thinking of the business, that’s all, Jane. I’m always careful not to put all my eggs in just the one basket, you know that. And were London office to fail—’

  Jane knew that Herbert was blustering, that despite his bravado her husband was intimidated by the thought of going to London and moving in an infinitely more sophisticated society than that to which he was accustomed in York, and it would only need the least excuse for him to change his mind. Jane suffered from no such fears and had set her heart on the move, both for the good of her daughter and for herself, since she found that now Forrester and Co had become so enormously prosperous, with the success of Herbert’s business had come an inevitable growth in her own social aspirations.

  ‘I understand,’ she told him. ‘And although not for one moment do I imagine – as I am quite sure you do not imagine either – that the London end of your business will fail, even so you would prefer to be completely confident before making any such move from here, Herbert. It’s a pity about that particular house, but of course there will be others.’

  ‘Of course there will,’ Herbert agreed readily, thinking himself now well off the hook. He took from inside his coat another opened letter and tapped it on the palm of one hand. ‘In fact oddly enough I have just been advised there was another house which could perhaps have suited. It’s plenty big enough for our needs, though in its disfavour they say it is actually some distance outside London.’

  Jane pulled a small disapproving face as she checked her hair in a round looking glass which hung to one side of the desk. ‘Best leave it all to one side at the moment then, Herbert dear. I’m not entirely sure about being outside the capital, you know. If we do make the move we should really need to be in the city itself, what with all the dances and suchlike Louisa would have to attend. Living at a distance would necessitate a great deal of travelling.’

  Herbert tapped the letter once more on his hand and then dropped it onto the open writing desk. ‘Aye. Aye, it would that, for the place is out in Hertfordshire and they say that’s a good hour or more from London. Any road it’s an old house, so most like it’s falling down.’

  ‘Exactly. So all told I feel we would be far better suited being in London,’ Jane concluded happily, her brief examination in the mirror having shown that her head of beautiful dark brown hair still showed no sign whatsoever of tell-tale grey. ‘There’s no hurry. We’ve time enough on our side, heaven only knows.’

  Once he had finished his second sherry, Herbert Forrester took leave of his wife to return to his business in the centre of the city, while Jane resumed running the affairs of the house. Shortly before Herbert was due back for luncheon, Jane returned to the morning room to receive a visitor connected with one of the many charitable organizations with which she was energetically involved. Later, while the maid was showing her guest back out, her mistress found her attention was caught by the letter her husband had left on the desk. Idly curious as to the exact whereabouts of the house in Hertfordshire, she took the letter out of the envelope and read it standing up.

  On discovering exactly what the letter contained, Jane Forrester sat down in order to appreciate it fully.

  At first Herbert showed little interest in the conversation. After all, it seemed to him they had already mutually decided not only not to take a house other than one actually in the capital but not in fact to move to London at this juncture, so his wife’s attempt at trying to interest him in a place he thought they had already rejected washed over him. Instead he relished his lunch while he let Jane talk. Much as he adored his wife, which he most genuinely did, he had found that on such occasions she had very little of any real interest to say, and so Herbert would simply nod when asked to agree, shake his head when asked the opposite and grunt in a non-committal fashion if asked for an opinion. It had to be faced that Herbert Forrester came home midday for the cuisine and not for his much-loved wife’s conversation.

  Today for some reason it was all about the Prince of Wales, and much as Herbert admired the monarchy as an institution he was no great devotee of the future king. Although the prince was quite obviously very much a man in every meaning of the word, Herbert Forrester was not sure that he could entirely approve of his behaviour. He knew that it was said kings and princes should be above criticism, but somehow he found he himself would have preferred royalty to be above reproach. He was also well aware that times were changing, and that if the present decline in the value of land continued then the aristocracy and perhaps even the monarchy would not be able to keep going in the way they had been. This really was a subject for serious discussion and one which Herbert was always ready to debate.

  But gossip pure and simple bored him as it bored most men. Everyone knew the Prince of Wales had a succession of mistresses, but as a topic for reasonable conversation Herbert Forrester saw no merit in it whatsoever. So since to judge from the little he had heard of it this was obviously to be the topic for examination during this particular luncheon, Herbert paid scant attention to his wife’s monologue and instead fell to admiring the fine oak panelling which was presently gracing his dining-room walls and which he had bought only a few months back from nearby Stainsby Hall.

  ‘It’s called Wynyates for some reason, but I dare say we could always change the name to Forresters if we had a mind to it,’ his wife was saying as one of the maids presented him with his main course of steak and kidney pudding.

  ‘Happen we could,’ he agreed abstractedly, ‘but since we’re not thinking of moving now I don’t see point in discussing it.’

  Jane waited until the servants had finished serving them both and had left the room before continuing. ‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said to you, Herbert Forrester.’

  Herbert strongly denied such a notion, but sensing he had been caught he attempted to bring the conversation round to a fresh topic. His wife for once was not allowing any such evasion.

  ‘You must at least have heard of her, Herbert,’ she insisted. ‘I know you have because we made mention of her at supper only two or three nights ago.’

  �
�Yes, yes, of course I have,’ Herbert agreed, waiting and hoping for some clue. ‘I remember right enough.’

  ‘Well then.’ It seemed he wasn’t to get any help, Herbert thought, glancing down the table at his wife and seeing her waiting for his response.

  ‘I mean I would have thought this changes everything, Herbert.’

  ‘It may well do, Jane,’ Herbert replied, desperately treading water. ‘Aye, you may well be right. But.’

  ‘But what, Herbert Forrester? I’m right though, aren’t I? You haven’t heard one blessed thing I’ve said to you. Wynyates is Lady Lanford’s house, Herbert dear.’

  ‘It might be owned by the Queen of Sheba, my love, but I thought we were agreed that Hertfordshire—’

  ‘Lady Lanford, Herbert,’ Jane interrupted, smiling the special secret little smile she reserved for the very best of Society gossip. ‘The Lady Lanford. Daisy Lanford.’

  Now the penny dropped for Herbert. Despite his aversion to tittle-tattle even he knew well enough who Daisy Lanford was. But it wasn’t her notoriety that had attracted his attention, it was her singular beauty. When he had first set eyes on a picture of Lady Lanford in a women’s periodical Herbert Forrester had been amazed by her looks. She surely had to be the loveliest woman he had ever seen. In fact he remembered considering that she was impossibly beautiful, so perfect were her looks and so elegant her figure. For once, happy man though he was, he had found himself envying and secretly congratulating the Prince of Wales on his choice of mistress.

  But Lady Lanford’s appeal was not the central theme of his wife’s lunchtime conversation. Herbert knew well enough that Jane did not wish to discuss the personal merits or demerits of the lady in question. She reserved those sorts of conversations for the party of ladies who gathered regularly at her tea table. There was a far different implication rooted in this dialogue and Herbert imagined with a certain amount of pride that although he had been paying no attention to the discourse he had got to the real point in one. ‘Ah. You think us buying this house might be to some advantage, my love, is that right? You think, as we say up here, some’at might rub off.’