Ken Follett: The Man From St. Petersburg

She thought about her guests this weekend. George was Stephen’s younger brother: he had Stephen’s charm but none of Stephen’s seriousness. George’s daughter, Belinda, was eighteen, the same age as Charlotte. Both girls would be coming out this season. Belinda’s mother had died some years ago and George had married again, rather quickly. His second wife, Clarissa, was much younger than he, and quite vivacious. She had given him twin sons. One of the twins would inherit Walden Hall when Stephen died, unless Lydia gave birth to a boy late in life. I could, she thought; I feel as if I could, but it just doesn’t happen.

It was almost time to be getting ready for dinner. She sighed. She felt comfortable and natural in her tea gown, with her fair hair dressed loosely; but now she would have to be laced into a corset and have her hair piled high on her head by a maid. It was said that some of the young women were giving up corsets altogether. That was all right, Lydia supposed, if you were naturally shaped like the figure eight, but she was small in all the wrong places.

She got up and went outside. That undergardener was standing by a rose tree, talking to one of the maids. Lydia recognized the maid: she was Annie, a pretty, voluptuous, empty-headed girl with a wide, generous smile. She stood with her hands in the pockets of her apron, turning her round face up to the sun and laughing at something the gardener had said. Now there is a girl who doesn’t need a corset, Lydia thought. Annie was supposed to be supervising Charlotte and Belinda, for the governess had the afternoon off. Lydia said sharply: “Annie! Where are the young ladies?”

Annie’s smile disappeared and she dropped a curtsy. “I can’t find them, m’lady.”

The gardener moved off sheepishly.

“You don’t appear to be looking for them,” Lydia said. “Off you go.”

“Very good, m’lady.” Annie ran toward the back of the house. Lydia sighed: the girls would not be there, but she could not be bothered to call Annie back and reprimand her again.

She strolled across the lawn, thinking of familiar and pleasant things, pushing St. Petersburg to the back of her mind. Stephen’s father, the seventh Earl of Walden, had planted the west side of the park with rhododendrons and azaleas. Lydia had never met the old man, for he had died before she knew Stephen, but by all accounts he had been one of the great larger-than-life Victorians. His bushes were now in full glorious bloom and made a rather un-Victorian blaze of assorted colors. We must have somebody paint a picture of the house, she thought; the last one was done before the park was mature.

She looked back at Walden Hall. The gray stone of the south front looked beautiful and dignified in the afternoon sunshine. In the center was the south door. The farther, east wing contained the drawing room and various dining rooms, and behind them a straggle of kitchens, pantries and laundries running higgledy-piggledy to the distant stables. Nearer to her, on the west side, were the morning room, the Octagon, and at the corner the library; then, around the comer along the west front, the billiard room, the gun room, her flower room, a smoking room and the estate office. On the second floor, the family bedrooms were mostly on the south side, the main guest rooms on the west side and the servants’ rooms over the kitchens to the northeast, out of sight. Above the second floor was an irrational collection of towers, turrets and attics. The whole facade was a riot of ornamental stonework in the best Victorian rococo manner, with flowers and chevrons and sculpted coils of rope, dragons and lions and cherubim, balconies and battlements, flagpoles and sundials and gargoyles. Lydia loved the place, and she was grateful that Stephen-unlike many of the old aristocracy-could afford to keep it up.

She saw Charlotte and Belinda emerge from the shrubbery across the lawn. Annie had not found them, of course. They both wore wide-brimmed hats and summer frocks with schoolgirls’ black stockings and low black shoes. Because Charlotte was coming out this season, she was occasionally permitted to put up her hair and dress for dinner, but most of the time Lydia treated her like the child she was, for it was bad for children to grow up too fast. The two cousins were deep in conversation, and Lydia wondered idly what they were talking about. What was on my mind when I was eighteen? she asked herself; and then she remembered a young man with soft hair and clever hands, and she thought: Please, God, let me keep my secrets.

“Do you think we’ll feel different after we’ve come out?” Belinda said.

Charlotte had thought about this before. “I shan’t.”

“But we’ll be grown-up.”

“I don’t see how a lot of parties and balls and picnics can make a person grown-up.”

“We’ll have to have corsets.”

Charlotte giggled. “Have you ever worn one?”

“No, have you?”

“I tried mine on last week.”

“What’s it like?”

“Awful. You can’t walk upright.”

“How did you look?”

Charlotte gestured with her hands to indicate an enormous bust. They both collapsed laughing. Charlotte caught sight of her mother and put on a contrite face in anticipation of a reprimand; but Mama seemed preoccupied and merely smiled vaguely as she turned away.

“It will be fun, though,” said Belinda.

“The season? Yes,” Charlotte said doubtfully. “But what’s the point of it all?”

“To meet the right sort of young man, of course.”

“To look for husbands, you mean.”

They reached the great oak in the middle of the lawn, and Belinda threw herself down on the seat beneath the tree, looking faintly sulky. “You think coming out is all very silly, don’t you?” she said.

Charlotte sat beside her and looked across the carpet of turf to the long south front of Walden Hall. The tall Gothic windows glinted in the afternoon sun. From here the house looked as if it might be rationally and regularly planned, but behind that facade it was really an enchanting muddle. She said: “What’s silly is being made to wait so long. I’m not in a hurry to go to balls and leave cards on people in the afternoon and meet young men-I shouldn’t mind if I never did those things-but it makes me so angry to be treated like a child still. I hate having supper with Marya; she’s quite ignorant, or pretends to be. At least in the dining room you get some conversation. Papa talks about interesting things. When I get bored Marya suggests we play cards. I don’t want to play anything; I’ve been playing all my life.” She sighed. Talking about it had made her angrier. She looked at Belinda’s calm, freckled face with its halo of red curls. Charlotte ’s own face was oval, with a rather distinctive straight nose and a strong chin, and her hair was thick and dark. Happy-go-lucky Belinda, she thought; these things really don’t bother her; she never gets intense about anything.

Charlotte touched Belinda’s arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to carry on so.”

“It’s all right.” Belinda smiled indulgently. “You always get cross about things you can’t possibly change. Do you remember that time you decided you wanted to go to Eton?”

“Never!”

“You most certainly did. You made a terrible fuss. Papa had gone to school at Eton, you said, so why shouldn’t you?”

Charlotte had no memory of that, but she could not deny that it sounded just like her at ten years old. She said: “But do you really think these things can’t possibly be different? Coming out, and going to London for the season, and getting engaged, and then marriage…”

“You could have a scandal and be forced to emigrate to Rhodesia.”

“I’m not quite sure how one goes about having a scandal.”