O Caledonia

Now as Hector drove them northwards, sipping occasionally from his hip flask, Janet was in good spirits, for she felt like the queen of the night in her purple dress. The queen of air and darkness. Perhaps she would meet a kindred spirit: “But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you.” This was just what she wanted. But how did anyone recognise a pilgrim soul? She had sat for a long time in front of her mirror turning her head about and twisting her features into soulful expressions. Nothing was quite right. Face turned to three-quarter profile, raised chin, and upturned eyeballs gave an impression of an ecstatic pre-Raphaelite maiden, but she could hardly walk around like that. Vera had once said that in infancy Janet had beautiful eyelids. She felt that little could be made of this. She recalled that one of the bad-tempered Greek goddesses shared this meaningless asset with her. Hera probably, the worst of the lot. Calliblepharous

; an unappealing adjective. And there had been the occasion when a friend of her parents had told them she thought Janet had a lovely face. Vera had reported this in accents of astonishment. Janet’s delight had rapidly turned to fear. She must never again meet this woman in case she changed her mind.

“And don’t forget what I told you about your gloves,” said Vera suddenly from the front of the car. Janet could remember nothing of the decorum and etiquette of these gloves, long, limp, and white with exasperating tiny pearl buttons. She resolved that she would lose hers as soon as they arrived. She began to feel nervous. Francis was silent, doubtless brooding on his conquests. “You’d better not talk the way you usually do; they’ll think you’re mad. Or showing off,” she advised him, from bitter experience. “Nonsense,” said Francis. “They’ll love it. They don’t like it when you go on about things because you’re a girl. And of course you are extremely boring. Girls need to know when to keep their mouths shut.”

The hunt ball was held in the Master’s house, enormous and Georgian, surrounded by rolling acres of snowy lawn and cedar trees. “More like an English country house,” said Vera approvingly, and certainly it was unusually well heated. On each side of the lofty entrance hall were vistas of long rooms opening into one another, each with a blazing log fire. The ballroom lay beyond the hall, brilliantly lit by chandeliers, pillared and mirrored. The Master, clad in hunting pink, greeted them warmly and seemed not to notice that Janet gave him both her hands to shake, having entangled the buttons of her gloves in her desperate attempt to get rid of them. They found the rest of their party. The grown-ups greeted each other with ecstatic cries, kisses, and handshakes. The young exchanged muttered introductions and eyed each other in silence. Janet had met two of the three girls before, but she knew only one of the boys, from long ago at Auchnasaugh. Francis and the boys moved off towards a drinks table. Vera watched them with narrowed eyes. The girls studied one another’s dresses. Janet was pleased to see that these were all rather similar, demurely pretty pastels with full floating skirts. “Very jeune fille,” she thought. She wriggled her hips so that her dragon tail swished from side to side. The shiny purple bows trembled like gigantic moths. Quite a few people were staring at her. She felt elated. Each of the boys, except for Francis, and each of the fathers asked her for a dance. Carefully she pencilled their names into her tiny pink programme book; she noticed that there were still a great many dances left to be filled in, but no doubt her partners would return to her. Or of course she might meet her demon lover.