Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [56]
“I thank you, Emma, you’re an artist. Before you go, tell me, how formal is Saturday dinner?”
“Oh, it’ll be black tie, mum. There’s one or two might wear white tie, but that’ll be only the older guests.”
“In either case, I’ll need to send for a dress. If I put a letter near the door, will it go in the morning?”
“Certainly, or you could ring, and someone will come for it.”
I had discovered writing materials and stamps in the table under the window. Mrs Hudson would not receive the letter until Saturday morning, but I felt sure she would rise to the challenge of getting evening apparel here to Justice by the afternoon.
And if it did not arrive, I should have a good excuse to plead a head-ache.
I very nearly used that excuse to avoid that evening’s demands on sociability. Following my afternoon’s reading, aware that the tragedy of Gabriel Hughenfort would be moving restlessly through the back of my mind, the thought of spending two or three hours making light conversation was a torment.
But when the gong sounded, I went.
Dinner was in the parlour where we had taken breakfast, and more comfortable it was than the formal dining room. Sidney Darling had spent the day at his club with friends; Lady Phillida had spent the day at a lecture and the shops with friends. He began the evening superciliously amiable, she determinedly cheerful; both of them detested Iris Sutherland.
I could not tell if their palpable dislike was due to the potential for rivalry she represented, or to Iris herself. Phillida kept glancing irritably at Iris’s dress, a subtle construction of heavy chocolate-brown crepe with flame-coloured kid trim that fit Iris like an old shirt and made her sister-in-law’s ornate velvet-and-beads look like dressing-up. Sidney seemed particularly irked by Iris’s arrival; he found the soup cold, the bird tough, the fish going off, and the wine inadequate.
Marsh watched these undercurrents with lidded eyes, and then over the meat course rolled his little bomb into the room. “Iris will be coming with us to London on Wednesday, Phillida.”
Lady Phillida’s upbringing held, and she managed to confine her reaction to a blink of the eyes and a brief contraction of the lips before saying merely, “How pleasant.”
Sidney, however, betrayed a less stringent upbringing. His fork clattered to his plate in protest, although he managed to contain his words to a strangled, “You feel that necessary?”
“Not necessary,” Marsh replied equably, “but she offered, and I accepted. Do you disapprove?”
Sidney was in no position to disapprove of any of the duke’s actions, but he could not quite rein in his vexation. He burst out, “I truly cannot see why you chose to handle this situation in such a formal manner. Surely we could have made them welcome at Justice. The poor old girl’ll feel as if she’s on show, like some . . . agricultural creature on the auction block.” That being a fairly accurate representation of the position in which Mme Hughenfort and her son were being placed, none of us tried to argue with Sidney. He went on, stabbing and sawing at his succulent roast. “I do not know why we couldn’t have had them here. I’m sure the child is house-broken. And I’m sure his mother is charming; most French women are. It is hardly a welcoming attitude. I need more gravy,” he ended petulantly. The footman leapt to attention, and we continued our meal with close concentration.
I glanced at Iris to see how she had taken this blatant lack of welcome; she shot me a look of quiet amusement, and went on placidly with her vegetables. I found myself liking Marsh’s wife more and more. She was intelligent, clear-spoken, interested in everything, and possessed of a sufficient degree of self-confidence to regard the waves of disapproval coming down the table at her with equanimity, even humour.
It was she who pushed away the increasingly heavy blanket of silence. “How was London today, Phillida?”