Snobbery with Violence by MC Beaton Page A

Blandon?’
    ‘I’m getting over it,’ said Rose ruefully, ‘but I don’t think anyone else is.’
    ‘Walk with me a little,’ urged Margaret. ‘That awful Trumpington woman is about to heave herself to her feet. She’s just been watching you as if you are a particularly succulent lamb chop. If we engage in deep conversation, she’ll hopefully leave us alone. This party does seem like a bore and I’ve only just arrived. Still, we’ve all got to find husbands.’
    ‘Have you had a season?’ asked Rose.
    ‘Yes, and I failed. Ma and Pa got two offers for my hand and I turned both down, so I’m in disgrace. I was let out of my cage to go to this house party and more or less ordered to come back with a husband.’
    ‘Is there anyone you find attractive? Who are they all?’
    ‘Well, there’re your dinner companions, Freddy and Tristram. Need I say more? The Honourable Clive Fraser is handsome and rich, but dull, very dull. Sir Gerald Burke is terribly amusing. Quite the rattle. But no money and there are rumours that he was, well, a friend of Oscar Wilde.’
    ‘Is he a playwright as well?’
    ‘Not quite. Harry Trenton is so-so – hunts, shoots and kills everything that moves, ideal for the Scottish female over there. Jerry Trumpington is married to the awful Mrs Trumpington. And then there is Neddie Freemantle. He’s called Neddie because he laughs like a donkey, haw, haw, haw. And finally Bertram Brookes, quiet and acidulous.’
    ‘It was very kind of Lord Hedley to invite me,’ said Rose. ‘As you will understand, I have not been in the way of getting any invitations at all.’
    ‘It’ll pass. You are not what I expected. The rumour was you didn’t like anyone and talked like an encyclopaedia.’
    ‘I wanted to find an intelligent husband,’ mourned Rose.
    Margaret gave an elegant little shrug. ‘You will have to forget that. They do not exist in our class. Did you not meet young men before your come-out? There must have been the local hunt balls and parties, dinners and so on.’
    ‘My parents really thought I was a schoolgirl and I am afraid my governess did not remind them of my age. It was only on my seventeenth birthday when they asked how old I was that they realized they would need to prepare me for a season. So I was trained in etiquette and dancing by various ladies. I first attended a few parties, just before the start of the season in London, but it was at one of those parties that I met Sir Geoffrey.’
    Margaret nodded in understanding. Parents of their class quite often saw little of their children.
    They were then joined by the gentlemen. Freddy and Tristram bore down on Rose and began to pay her extravagant compliments until she felt she couldn’t bear their company any longer. She excused herself and went to her hostess and pleaded she had a headache. The marchioness summoned Daisy, and, followed by her maid, Rose escaped.
    Once in her room, she confided in Daisy. ‘I had to get away. There were two young men praising my appearance in a very warm way which I felt was not at all the thing.’
    ‘Who were they?’ asked Daisy, taking the bone pins out of Rose’s hair.
    ‘Freddy Pomfret and Tristram Baker-Willis.’
    ‘What do they look like?’
    ‘In a way, almost alike. They both have short dark hair smeared down with grease and very white faces and rather thick white lips. Both very slim. Freddy has a small moustache and Tristram is clean-shaven. It’s all right, Daisy, you can go to bed. If you just help me out of my gown and unfasten my stays, I can do the rest.’
    Daisy lifted the gown over Rose’s head and then untied the ribbons of the corselet.
    ‘I really do feel a fish out of water,’ mourned Rose as Daisy stooped and unclipped the long suspenders. ‘But there’s something odd about this house party. Or maybe it is just me and there’s nothing odd at all.’
    ‘Never mind, my lady. It’s the first day. Would you like me to fetch you a cup of Bournville