She SHALL come to the ball

Lady Macauley thinks that all things considered, we will probably do best to let Rose come to the ball believing her secret is still safe.

“She has done her worst” she remarked yesterday, sitting in her private room upstairs with Bill and Belle and me; Frances having already called another cab, and fled the scene; and Jack and Alice being relegated on this occasion to taking tea alone, downstairs in the drawing room. “And I agree her worst is very bad..... though if it ends in her having assisted me in bringing Will and Imogen together, well, all cannot be said to have been entirely lost.”

She had seemed to take the news of Rose’s double-dealing rather well; had scarcely gulped or blinked indeed - though there had been a moment, just one, and just after the full facts had been put before her, when she had covered her face with her hands, and looked as if she might be going to be crushed by it. Bill had warned us to be on our guard against just such a reaction. “We must never forget how old she is” he had reminded Belle and me, while we waited for Lady Macauley herself to come and join us. “I agree it’s not always easy to see her that way, given her tremendous fighting spirit. But that’s what she is nonetheless – an old lady approaching ninety. And we should be wary of delivering the blow that fells her.”

Bill had earlier exploded with rage himself. Not on his own account, as he furiously pointed out to Frances and me, when we had given him our account of how matters stood. Not even, particularly, on that of Lady Macauley, who might be disturbed, and even a little hurt by it all, but who had after all not been personally attacked, and who would find her relief in swift retaliation anyway. No, his rage was all for Belle, who would see in this an act of treachery against a friendship she had believed was based on long affection and mutual trust. I have seldom seen him so angry – and Frances, who never has, was actually rather alarmed by what she seemed to have set in motion.

We were glad though, that we had taken the precaution of catching him alone first; since we were able, by that means, not only to calm his rage, and prevent his immediately rushing home to strike a blow at Rose and her ‘damnable parson’ – but also to suggest to him that there were some aspects of the story that would be better withheld from Belle. He was all in agreement with that - there was no earthly reason why she should be burdened with every sorry detail! He would be *******d for example (my apologies; but Bill’s expletives, which tend to be of the old-fashioned sort, have nonetheless no proper place on these pages, and so you must conjure them for yourself) .... Bill would be damned anyway – put it no more violently than that - if he’d let Belle know of the part that had been designed for her to play in this sordid affair! There was evidence enough to heap against the duplicitous pair, God knew, without recourse to anything as hideously wounding as that.

And so it was, that with Frances gone home again, and the story wholly in our own hands, Bill and I were able to present a reasonably calm concerted front when relaying it, first to Belle, and then to Lady Macauley, half an hour later. Belle was indeed hurt and bewildered, even by the censored version, and had found at first nothing to say - save for the rather wan observation that “it would be a pity if the daughter had to suffer for the father’s sins – especially since Imogen is so very much Mummy’s favourite contender too”. Her mother however, whose first reaction had suggested possible collapse, was quick to rally, and come up with what appeared to be her considered response.

“She is a great deal more devious than I ever suspected” she finally, somewhat meditatively said. “And it’s true I suspected her of many things. I always knew she was self-seeking of course; always playing some little game that reflected her own best interests most of all. But I had supposed, at least, that she was playing them one at a time – so it comes as quite a shock to know she was playing so many, all at once! I probably even knew that she secretly detested me. There was that frigid little smile she always had, at moments of severest personal trial – I always understood, I think, that if she hadn’t been smiling at me so assiduously, she’d have been getting her knife out, ready to plunge it in my back. That, I have always been able to live with – so long as she continued to amuse, and make herself useful to me. I am not such a good woman myself – I believe I am in many respects a very bad one - as to have right to the moral high ground where others are concerned. But that she should have hated Belle too – or should at least have thought so little of their long friendship as to be prepared to sacrifice it at the altar of her own avarice – well, that is not to be forgiven; and I for one am not prepared to let it pass without a fight. Now she shall see what we can do by way of redress. Or call it for civility’s sake, if you like - since I believe we are on the whole a civilised people - quid pro quo.”

Lady Macauley had in fact a great deal more than that to say. That we should take the time to consider this thing very carefully from every angle, was her first concern; especially in light of the fact that Alice, when she was told – as one supposed she must be, at some point - would undoubtedly put some very different construction on it all.

“Alice will want to cancel the ball and send the whole lot packing”she decided. “Which will not serve my purposes - oh, not at all! No, the ball must go ahead just as planned. And everyone must be there, including Rose. Including even the Wilmots, who must be brought to see the absurdity of their own plan, and be persuaded to go home! I think we shall all breathe a little more easily when that foolish, and largely irrelevant pair has gone.”

She told us to leave her then. She would have her own tea brought up to her there; she had much thinking to do, and she would do it best alone. We should go down to the drawing room and do what we could to keep Alice from discovering the truth of what had just transpired.

“You won’t do anything precipitate Mummy, like phoning Rose....?” Belle had wanted to be assured of that, before she would consent to leave. But Lady Macauley had only the highest disdain for such an idea.

“What kind of a foolish old woman do you think I am, that you should suspect me of any such thing?” she fairly snapped back at Belle. “Do you think me likely to blow my own cover before I have even properly worked out what it’s going to be? No, of course I won’t be phoning Rose! Though it’s possible I might have to phone the Baineses...... I believe there is something I can do you see, to stop Rose and David Porteous in their tracks. But I shall need Roland’s help to put it in motion.... I shall probably need the help of several other people too; I’ll give you a list of their names, when I have thought them out. Meantime, there is much to be done – and the ball might have to be postponed by a day ....”

She dismissed us then; having not the slightest further need, as she put it, for our presence. We must go downstairs and do what we could to keep Alice from interfering. And with that, just for the moment, we had to be content.