A Stairs - Eva Ibbotson

‘What do you think?’ he asked the pale young man in charge of rentals.

‘It suits you, sir. It suits you very well.’

‘I don’t like it,’ pronounced Dr Lightbody. ‘It’s the hat, I think.’ He removed it to reveal his high and intellectual forehead.

‘What about Admiral Nelson, sir? We do a very nice line in him. He comes in three sizes and the eye-patch is free.’

The doctor shook his head. To go as a person in any way injured or defiled, even in battle, was against his principles.

He allowed the young man to divest him of his uniform and, clad only in trousers and braces, began to walk along the rows of ermine-lined mantles and sumptuous velvet cloaks.

‘You don’t fancy a nice cavalier, sir? Those hats with the big feathers always go down very well with the ladies.’

Dr Lightbody shook his head. Though the ringleted Jacobean wigs were very flattering one never knew what went on underneath.

It was all so annoying, he reflected, pausing now by the leather jerkin and feathered head-dress of an Indian brave, Doreen still being in hospital. Doreen was a good needlewoman, he had to give her that - she’d always made his shirts. It would have been no trouble to her to have run something up for him. Instead of which she just lay there in that awful ward full of disgusting, wheezing old women and yellow people with tubes in them, staring at him with those big, grey eyes of hers as though he could help her. The sister had given him an odd look when he’d asked if it would hurt Doreen to do a bit of sewing while she was in there, so he supposed it was no good pursuing the subject. As a matter of fact, the hospital visits were an embarrassment altogether - the staff who talked to him about Doreen’s condition seemed to think that his title of ‘Doctor’ would make him understand their jargon. Whereas in fact his title was a courtesy one, the courtesy being one that he had, so to speak, bestowed on himself when, in the drudgery ofhis last year at the catering college, he had first glimpsed his vision of the perfectibility of man.

‘These are nice, we always think,’ said the assistant, holding up a Viking helmet and breastplate. ‘With a red beard, perhaps - and thongs?’

Again Dr Lightbody shook his head. He wanted something which would suggest what he saw as his threefold role: of teacher, of healer, of leader of men. Something in white and gold, possibly? A High Priest? A Zoro-astrian?

Suddenly he had an idea. ‘What about the Egyptians? Akhnaton, the Sun King - do you have him?’

‘I don’t know if we have him specifically, sir, but our Egyptian section is very well stocked. If you’d just come through here …’

Ten minutes later, in the many-layered, pleated linen skirts, the curved sandals and golden, cap-shaped crown, Dr Lightbody stood before the mirror again.

It was closer, much closer — but there was something a little bit effeminate about the whole ensemble. Not surprising, really - when all was said and done there was a touch of the tarbrush about the Egyptians.

Then, with the inner certainty of all visions, inspiration came.

Why go as a mere Sun King? Why not a Sun God ?’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said to the weary assistant. ‘I’d like to see the Greek costumes, please.’

It was obvious, really. He would go as Apollo.

- - - -*

In the breakfast room at Fame Castle, a great turreted keep set on a wave-lashed shore which the Nettlefords’ ancestors, after centuries of bloodshed, had wrested from a doomed Northumbrian king, the Lady Lavinia was eating kedgeree.

She was well satisfied with life. Her bridesmaid’s dress had arrived that morning, her costume for the ball was waiting for her in Newcastle. This time, she was certain, all would go well. At the Ritz, Tom Byrne had been charming and attentive, there could be no possible competition from the goitrous Cynthia Smythe and she had been able, by certain feminine gestures, to show the best man that she found him pleasing. Meanwhile, the morning’s shopping trip to Newcastle would provide more immediate delights. Not that one would ever seriously demean oneself, but still…

Stretching away to her left on either side of the dark oak table, sat the Ladies Hermione, Priscilla, Gwendolyn and Beatrice, all of them sporting, in various combinations, the close-set eyes, haughty expressions and huge, beaked noses which had struck dread into so many subalterns and Lloyd’s underwriters in the ballrooms of high society. At the head of the table sat the duke, buried in The Times which he had scarcely put down since he’d discovered that his fifth child, too, was a girl. And opposite him Honoria Nettleford, his duchess, surveying, with some anxiety, her brood.

The season was virtually over and none of the girls had had so much as a matrimonial nibble. In three weeks it would be the twelfth and though they’d got up a good party for the shooting, it was singularly short of eligible young men, ail of whom seemed to have previous engagements. Which was a pity, for the girls, though thin, were strong, hardy girls and showed, the duchess considered, to better advantage jodhpured and oilskinned against the keening winds of a Northumbrian summer than in the tulle and feathers suitable for the overheated ballrooms of London Society.

What a problem it all was, thought the duchess, helping herself to kidneys. Where, oh where, in a world which the war had so cruelly decimated of young men, was she going to find anyone suitable? Because there was going to be no lowering of standards for the Nettlefords. Let other women bestow their daughters on fledgling curates or half-baked university professors. She, Honoria Nettleford, would never lower the flag!

So everything now depended on the wedding at Mersham and the ball at Heslop which preceded it. Lavinia herself seemed confident that Tom Byrne had grasped the advantages of marrying a Nettleford, but the duchess had seen too many best men scratch at the starting post to be certain. Should she give young Byrne a hint, perhaps? Mention Lavinia’s certificate for the 250-yards breast stroke? Or tell him what the vet had said about her when she delivered the Jack Russell of six puppies and one of them a breech? Lavinia was not only the eldest but - it had to be admitted - the bossiest and the plainest: once Lavinia was off her hands, the duchess was certain the others would quickly follow. Surely, at the ball, waltzing with Lawy (but here the duchessclosed her eyes for the waltz was not quite Lavinia’s forte) Tom Byrne would see her worth? He had a younger brother too - perhaps he would do for Beatrice?.

She was glad, really, that Lady Byrne had decided on fancy dress. It would give the girls more scope. Priscilla was going as Cleopatra, Beatrice as a Daffodil, Gwendolyn as Grace Darling, the local heroine. With Hermione (who had made rather a jolly severed head out of papier mache) as Salome, and Lavinia as the water sprite, Undine, they should make quite an entrance. Once Lavinia’s costume had been altered that is, because those tight-fitting, glittering scales had suggested something quite different when Lavinia had first tried them on. It was to add a gauze overskirt and some gauze veiling that she was taking her eldest daughter to Newcastle. This done, she was sure the effect would be all they hoped for: mysterious, subtle and marine.

‘Don’t forget to be ready on time, Lawy,’ she said now. ‘I told Sergei to bring the car round at ten.’

The Ladies Hermione, Priscilla, Gwendolyn and Beatrice stopped chewing in unison, and in unison put down their forks. Four pairs of pale eyes fixed themselves on Lady Lavinia. Here was treachery: naked and unashamed.

‘You said Hudson was driving you,’ hissed Hermione to her eldest sister.