Rutherford Park Read Online Free Page A

fingers on the curtain cord, smoothing the fabric of the huge velvet drapes. Helene was always elegantly dressed by Worth of Paris; and with her small pert face, her mass of strawberry blond hair and her little foxlike smile, Octavia had once heard Helene described—at some long-ago London party—as having “dancing eyes.” Perhaps they danced for a man; to Octavia, Helene’s eyes were speculative, assessing. If they danced at all it was with a lively kind of cunning.
    Octavia stood in the second sitting room and waited. Helene would think it terribly funny that there was snow, of course. It would all be so delicious, so
northern
of them to have snow, to have ice, to have had one tree missing, in a pool of sawdust, right from the front of the house; it would be so divinely
gauche
of them. Octavia consciously, slowly unwound the cord from her fingers.
    Here came the car; it rounded the corner by the lodge. Therewas a knock at the sitting room door, and Mr. Bradfield appeared. “Madame de Montfort is arriving, ma’am,” he said.
    “I know,” Octavia replied. “Bring her straight in here. See that the room is warm upstairs. Have Amelie look after her clothes.”
    Bradfield raised a slight, discreet eyebrow as he left. Octavia bit her lip. Of course it was done already.
    There was a noise out in the hall. The sound of the door being opened, a flurry of voices. Nash, the footman, trotting down the outside steps in that irritatingly effeminate way of his. Octavia turned to the mirror over the fireplace and smoothed her hair. How ridiculous to be annoyed at Nash, she thought. He was a very adept, very careful boy. She could hear the luggage being unloaded. Helene would purse her lips at such a fuss within a few feet of her. Service should be soundless. The front door closed with a sepulchral thud.
    Helene was suddenly in the room, peeling off her long kid gloves, letting her immense coat fall, holding out both hands.
    “Oh, but I’m terribly cold.” She laughed. Behind her, William sidestepped the coat and Bradfield leapt to retrieve it. “Like a corpse! No blood at all! Just feel me!” Helene pressed her face to Octavia’s cheek. “My dearest girl,” she whispered. She was wearing some kind of adolescent perfume: all violets. She stepped back and held Octavia at arm’s length. “Don’t you look lovely!” she exclaimed. “What is this? Callot Soeurs? I’ve never seen their day dresses. How extraordinary, and how fine! So brave of you to choose lavender in winter. It makes one seem so pale. But
you
.” She smiled, looking down at Octavia from her five feet, ten inches, made even larger by the huge traveling hat with its spray of pheasant feathers, “
You
, darling.” She leaned close to Octavia’s face as if confiding a secret. “How you carry it off.”
    You are a parody of yourself
, Octavia thought. She knew by evening the gushing Helene would have been replaced by the meditative,intelligent Helene so full of sly witticism. But it always, always knocked her back, this first assault of words. “Helene,” she said, smiling. The knot in her diaphragm eased a fraction. “Come and sit.”
    * * *
    T here was still the sound of labor in the drive outside when William went up to his room in the early afternoon.
    Luncheon had been pleasant enough; the talk had been of the weather, of course. And of the Stanningfields, who were already here and who had gone out to see their relations in Richmond for the day; of Harry, who had gone with them; of the charm of Wasthwaite station, farther up the line, with its Christmas wreaths; and the jocund station master, Baddeley. The three of them had politely considered William’s return journey in the Napier to meet Louisa and Charlotte coming from Manchester on the afternoon train.
    Yet with every step on the stair, William cursed. He cursed himself; he cursed the wretched woman who was never out of his mind; he cursed the weather; he cursed Baddeley’s cheeriness and