The White Marriage Read online

  ‘I am sure of it.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because by doing so, you, and she, will become very rich indeed, and let us be practical, poverty is the root of all evil, not money.’

  ‘Supposing she is already very rich?’

  ‘She won’t be, believe me. Anyone suitable to fill the position will not be considered—’

  ‘You make it sound like hiring a maid—’

  ‘Anyone suitable not only will not be rich, she will be innocent and well-behaved. We shall make sure of it.’

  ‘I see.’ There was a pause before Gray finally finished, ‘I don’t know why, but I feel as if I am planning a murder.’

  ‘Anyone suitable will agree to our plan because it will seem very, very easy, which of course it is.’

  ‘Again – because?’

  ‘Because you will be offering her a very nice, and a very happy life.’

  ‘Supposing she is not nice and has no intention of having a happy life, and we discover this far too late?’

  ‘She will be nice, if I have anything to do with it.’ Leandra touched Gray lightly on the cheek. ‘Leave it to me. This is what my father always called “women’s palaver”. Now, tonight there is a dance at the Norells’ – Harcourt House? Remember, we went there for drinks when you stayed at Christmas?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘We will dine here – there will be another eight of us coming over from Stapleton Court – and then we will all motor on to Harcourt House. It is only fifteen miles from here. You will take the Bridlingtons, and Ginny, and Randy. I will see to the others. We will be about six cars.’

  ‘Let us pray my hose does not split again,’ Gray said in a suddenly pious tone.

  ‘Yes, Gray darling, let us pray.’ Leandra paused, the expression in her eyes softening. ‘Let us pray for many things, most of all to find someone suitable for you to marry so that the Trust will be released, and all will be well for you. Time is, after all, running out. Your father is no spring chicken.’

  Gray nodded. If his father died, and he remained unmarried, his very married cousin Barrington Wyndham would inherit everything. He frowned suddenly.

  ‘Just one thing, Leandra. If this is to be a wholly white marriage, à la française, what happens about – you know – an heir to satisfy my father’s all-abiding desire to pass on his estate in the male line?’

  ‘You adopt abroad, darling. Everyone does it. There are so many babies being born where or when they shouldn’t be, because of the war. It is simple, truly it is. Quite, quite simple. Everything can be arranged.’

  Gray sighed. Really, Leandra should have been given the country to run. If she had there would have been no rationing, everyone would be employed, and all England would be as beautifully run as Maydown.

  Mary Chantry replaced the telephone on its cradle, and turned to Sunny, who had just come in from a walk.

  ‘Lady Finsborough is unable to go to the ball tonight on account of her mother being taken ill, Sunny. It seems that the poor lady, who, as you know, lives in the Dower House on the estate, is far from well.’

  Mary turned away.

  ‘After all that work on the dress, what a shame for her, and for you, Ma.’

  Sunny followed her mother back into the dining room, and they both looked up at the beautiful, old-fashioned, yellow satin, bias-cut dress and bolero at which Mary had worked so hard over the last thirty-six hours, and which was now hanging from the dining-room picture rail.

  Mary turned to Sunny. ‘Lady Finsborough did suggest to me that you might like to go in her stead, because you are known to the Norells of Harcourt House – remember you used to visit the twins, and they used to come over here and play Monopoly sometimes?’

  ‘Yes, of course I remember the twins coming over.’

  The contrast between Pear Tree Cottage and the grandeur of Harcourt House had been all too evident to all of them, and yet the Norells seemed to love coming to Pear Tree Cottage because, as Jennifer Norell used to murmur to Sunny, her eyes rolling with delight at the prospect, ‘You have such lovely food at your cottage. We get nothing to eat at home except gristle and fat. Nanny starves us!’

  Mary Chantry was continuing, ‘At any rate, knowing that you don’t really like grand people, I thanked Lady Finsborough, but said I thought you were busy. I must say I thought she sounded a little disappointed, but there we are. No point in going somewhere if you’re going to feel awkward.’

  ‘Lady Finsborough wanted me to go in her stead? Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh, yes, ducks, she did indeed, but as I said, I didn’t think you would want to go.’

  ‘Why ever not, Ma?’ Sunny stared at her mother.

  Mary stared right back at her, slowly removing the pins from her mouth.

  ‘Of course I want to go, of course I do!’ Sunny caught her mother by the arm as she was turning away. ‘Of course I would like that sort of thing. In fact, I am quite sure I will. I just say things like that about grand people – well, because I’ve just never been asked, I suppose.’

  Her mother followed her out into the hall. ‘Well, if you’re sure, dear. I must say, Lady Finsborough was very charming about it all. She even suggested you could wear her dress since you are both so much the same size.’

  ‘So I could. I modelled it for you, didn’t I? Oh, yes, how wonderful, I could wear the dress.’

  Before Mary could say any more, Sunny had opened the leather telephone book and started to dial Lady Finsborough’s number, drumming her fingers on the telephone table as they both stood listening to what now seemed like the endless ringing of the telephone. Sunny’s fingers drummed faster and faster, as if she could encourage someone the other end to answer, which they finally did. ‘Hallo, yes. I wonder if I could speak to Lady Finsborough? … Sorry? … Yes, of course. It’s Sunny Chantry.’ Sunny covered the telephone and mouthed, ‘Her butler …’ at Mary, who by now was feeling dreadfully awkward for several reasons she could not quite understand, but these feelings were soon followed by relief as she listened to the telephone conversation that followed.

  Finally Sunny put down the telephone.

  ‘You heard, Ma? I’m to go to the Manor this evening, and join the Brownes’ dinner party, and then on to the dance.’

  Sunny started to jiggle up and down on the spot out of excitement, which was really rather a childish habit that Mary knew she ought to have grown out of, but like so much to do with Sunny, she never had the heart to stop her because, when all was said and done, one day she would get older, and the jiggling would stop anyway.

  ‘Will Pa be able to take me? Will the Vauxhall be off its blocks by then? Will there be someone else who could take me if Pa can’t?’

  ‘Best not to let Pa take you,’ Mary said quickly. ‘You know how it is, such a terrible thing if you break down, like that poor man yesterday morning, and in a Bentley too. No, best if Mr Arkwright takes you, and then your hostess will make sure there is someone to bring you back to Pear Tree Cottage, as they do.’

  But Sunny wasn’t listening. She was already pushing her way back into the dining room to gaze at the beautiful dress.

  ‘I say, Ma, can you imagine? I shall be going to the ball in Lady Finsborough’s dress! Who would have thought it?’

  Her mother nodded, taking the dress down and holding it against her daughter once more. She knew she had done a good job on it, knew that Sunny, with her pretty looks, would look beautiful.

  ‘Just be careful not to let anyone spill anything on it, Sunny, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course, of course, I shall treat it like spun gold.’

  Sunny took the dress from her mother and held it against herself.

  ‘The only thing is – I mean, what I don’t understand, Ma, is why Lady Finsborough thought of me; why she thought I might like to go in her stead.’

  ‘She’s a very kind woman, Sunny, she probably knew.’

  ‘What? What did she know?’

  Her mother frowned
. ‘Something, I imagine. People like that, they always know something.’

  The dance began at ten o’clock. ‘Breakfast’, as it was still always called at balls and dances, although in reality a late night supper, would be served from twelve thirty onwards – and motor cars would be sent for at one thirty, although like ‘breakfast’, they were still referred to in the old way on formal invitations, as ‘carriages’.

  The ballroom at Harcourt House was already a lively scene when Leandra and Dilke arrived with their house party, the dancers waltzing gracefully to the sound of a small orchestra, the clusters of candles at either end of the room burning brightly among great banks of flowers, while the overhead, electrically lit chandeliers provided just the right amount of light. It was an undeniably pretty sight, a sight that reminded both the dancers and their onlookers that no matter what Hitler had thrown at them, style had at last returned to England. He might have brought the country to its knees for six years, but now they were up on their feet once again, and what was more and what was better, old and young alike, they were dancing, just like in the old days before the war.

  ‘This is the time when I feel the need for a quizzing glass, as in Regency times,’ Gray murmured as he stood on the top step of the stairs.

  He turned to Randy Beauchamp, who was looking even more startled than usual as yet more of his prematurely white hair was standing up on end, matching his old-fashioned stand-up collar.

  ‘No one’s wearing white tie any more,’ he complained a little too loudly. ‘The whole place is awash with dine-at-home black ties,’ he groaned.

  ‘That’s how it has been since the war, Randy,’ Gray told him, adding a moment later to himself, ‘As a matter of fact, since both of the wars.’

  ‘I still think it looks frightful; black tie at a ball looks frightful,’ Randy went on inexorably. ‘Quite frightful. And I dare say from the look of the young men half of them are wearing made-up bow ties at that. I dare say none of them even knows how to tie a bow tie.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think they would dare wear already made-up bow ties, Randy – not if they knew you were coming.’

  They were passed by couple after couple, all heading for the dance floor, but neither of them was tempted to turn round and search out a dancing partner for himself, preferring instead to lean against the banisters of the staircase and watch the pageant below.

  ‘I must say, the women and the girls look quite sweet, and Barbara Goalen looks more than sweet – she looks ravishing as usual,’ Randy finally conceded. ‘But for the rest, yes, I must say, they look really quite sweet.’

  He turned to look up at Gray, who was now staring past him at someone below them.

  ‘I say, you’re looking a little strange, old chap. Seen someone from your past, come back to haunt you?’

  ‘No, no, just a rather sweet face.’

  Gray moved slowly down the staircase towards the dance floor just as the music came to an end, and just as Sunny was bobbing a little mock curtsy to her partner and turning to leave the floor.

  She stopped as she saw Gray coming towards her, and laughed.

  ‘Good heavens, Mr Wyndham! First yesterday morning, and now this evening. I dare say you are more surprised to see me than I am to see you; but I am the one out of my ground, I dare say. How is the motor car? Did Mr Arkwright do it all right? He is a splendid mechanic, but he has never done a Bentley before. As you probably gathered, we do not see many Bentleys in Rushington, truly we don’t, so I do hope you made it all right. Well, stupid of me, really – of course you made it all right, or you wouldn’t be here,’ she finally finished.

  Gray stared at her. Sunny was wearing the same yellow evening dress that she had been wearing the day before when she had opened the door of her parents’ cottage to him, but she was also wearing her long dark hair up, and tied with a brocade ribbon at the back, which, for some reason he couldn’t quite work out, had the effect of making all the other women in the room, in their jewellery and splendid ball gowns, look overdressed and a little tired.

  ‘Who are you, might I ask?’ Gray finally asked, poker-faced. ‘Have we met before? Now let me see, I seem to remember … where was it? Ascot? Henley? No. No … Oh yes, of course, I remember now. You are – you are, yes, you are Miss Chantry. I am sorry, for a second I really didn’t know you in that dress without the pins down the side. You look really quite different without the pins.’

  Sunny gave her kitten-like smile. ‘I dare say I might never have known you without your motor car, if I hadn’t met you first without it. You know, like people without their shops, or when you meet someone on the Downs, and you recognise their dogs, but not them,’ she retorted.

  ‘Touché,’ Gray laughed. ‘I suppose it is really rather a miracle you know me without my Bentley,’ he added a little ruefully.

  ‘You have obviously only just arrived,’ Sunny went on airily.

  ‘Yes, I have only just arrived. I am staying at Maydown, a Friday-to-Monday with the Fortescues. And you? Are you staying nearby, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh no, I don’t like staying with people when I can be at home,’ Sunny replied, turning away to look at the other dancers because she felt she might be losing their exchange. ‘As a matter of fact I have been here for hours and hours because, being in a much older party, I arrived unfashionably early.’ She leaned forward and whispered, ‘Actually, I am only here because Lady Finsborough’s mother fell ill and there was no one to wear the dress! So she rang up my mother and suggested that I come here in her stead, because I have known the Norells for years and years – they used to come over to Pear Tree Cottage for Sunday lunch and play Monopoly. They loved the lunch because their nanny only gave them mutton with lots of fat and overcooked carrots and tapioca, all of which they hated, whereas Ma always managed roast beef, because of knowing the farmer up the way, and having done his wife’s wedding dress, not to mention altering all his clothes when he came back from the prisoner-of-war camp.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Gray stepped back a little from Sunny as if to allow for her torrent of dialogue. ‘Well, I must say, joking apart, that is a very pretty dress, and I am very glad you wore it, even if it really belongs to Lady Finsborough.’

  ‘Since it is quite an old dress I don’t suppose there is anyone else here who would have wanted to wear it, which is probably why she thought of me. I like it so much.’ She looked down at the dress, and then up at Gray. ‘Mind you, I do rather miss the pins.’

  Gray laughed. ‘Would you like the next dance, without pins?’

  ‘Well, yes. But shouldn’t you dance with your hostess first?’

  ‘Of course, but on this occasion I am sure she will understand. I will explain to her later that I would not be here if it were not for you.’

  Gray led Sunny on to the dance floor. It was a waltz. He didn’t know why but it seemed suddenly really rather appropriate to be dancing with such a sweet, old-fashioned girl in an old-fashioned frock.

  As he waltzed Sunny past a group standing chatting to the side of the ballroom, he saw Leandra staring at them both, taking in the youthful figure in his arms. He smiled across at her and it seemed to Gray that Leandra’s look to him was saying, ‘Could this be the one perhaps?’

  Chapter Two

  Mary Chantry looked up from her sewing machine and stared out at her front garden, as she always did between bouts of turning the machine’s wheel. Someone was coming up to the cottage door, and she knew straight away from the vaguely bohemian look of her – amber beads, long black skirt – that it was Sunny’s friend Arietta Staunton.

  ‘Come in, come in, Arietta dear, come in – do,’ Mary begged her, holding open the front door while speaking as always through pins. ‘What a beautiful morning. And God created Rushington, wouldn’t you say?’

  Arietta followed Mrs Chantry into the hall, but not into the dining room.

  ‘Is Sunny here?’ she asked, pronouncing her words rather over-clearly.

  Mary turned at the dining-room doo
r. ‘Yes, dear, she is here, but she is still fast asleep upstairs.’

  ‘Oh.’ Arietta smiled broadly at Mrs Chantry. ‘Lucky thing,’ she went on, nodding and smiling even more broadly.

  ‘Go and wake her up, if you can, Arietta, but stand well back, because she can be lethal when woken too suddenly!’

  Mary laughed, but Arietta did not, though she smiled ever more broadly.

  Mary carried on into the dining room, and then stopped and returned to the hall.

  ‘Arietta!’ She paused, taking the pins from her mouth one by one, quite carefully, as if they were fish bones, and sticking them, also one by one, into the pin cushion strapped to her wrist. ‘Arietta, you have had your braces off! My dear, this is too exciting for words.’

  Arietta’s smile was so wide now it was practically splitting her face.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Mary leaned forward, the better to appreciate the smile.

  ‘Perfect, just perfect. Your teeth are so perfect I dare say you could do advertising for an American toothpaste company, really you could.’

  Arietta finally stopped smiling and let out a sigh of such deep feeling that Mary felt compelled to pat her reassuringly on her arm.

  ‘I had them off on Friday afternoon, and I haven’t stopped smiling since.’

  ‘Well, of course, you wouldn’t have done, you poor child. Braces are such a burden, I often wonder how anyone puts up with them, really I do wonder. Not that Sunny has ever had to have a brace, but if she did I know that she would feel just as you do. Now, go up and wake her with your new bright smile. I dare say she will have to shade her eyes to look at you.’ Mary nodded up the stairs. ‘She is sleeping off last night’s party – well, not a party so much, a ball really. Lady Finsborough, you know? She couldn’t go, so Sunny went instead, because Sunny stands in for all Lady Finsborough’s dress fittings, especially for the Season and Ascot and the rest, their measurements and height being precisely the same, so as she couldn’t go to the ball she very kindly insisted that Sunny went in her stead. She also insisted that she wore her dress, would you believe? Mind, it is pre-war, but even so – such generosity is almost unimaginable, you must agree.’