‘Lady Morgan has already made some introductions,’ Lavinia replied through gritted teeth, suddenly painfully aware of the inadequacy of both her deportment and diction. The women sweeping past seemed to avoid looking at her, instead studiously gazing to one side or turning to their companion a little too gaily.
Hamish Campbell, sensing Lavinia’s anxiety, stepped forward. ‘Colonel, may I request your wife’s company for the next dance? Unless, of course, her card is full?’
‘My card is woefully empty,’ Lavinia laughed.
‘I give you my word, sir, I won’t make love to her,’ Campbell added, an ironic smile playing across his lips.
‘Is she not worthy?’ Huntington played along.
‘Indeed she is, but I had taken you for an uxorious man.’
The Colonel leaned towards the young man, dangerously close, as if about to challenge him to a duel. ‘The waltzes have begun. You may have her for just one dance,’ he growled in mock anger.
Bowing, Hamish Campbell led Lavinia to the dance floor.
‘You have a distinct air of discontentment, my friend. At least feign happiness, James.’ Genuinely concerned, Lady Morgan placed her hand on the Colonel’s arm. Since his marriage, she had observed a new sobriety, a dull gravity, about him.
‘Lately, I have concluded that although I am capable of the pursuit of intimacy, I am incapable of sustaining the emotion once I have secured the object of my desire. I am, alas, fatally addicted to the chase,’ the Colonel replied. He removed his snuffbox from his waistcoat, placed a large pinch in the crook of his hand, and inhaled deeply. ‘I thought I had tired of such behaviour and could dispense with my old habits. But I fear I cannot, and it is a painful realisation.’
He pulled out a handkerchief and sneezed, leaving an orangey-red stain in the centre of the white cotton. Lady Morgan, mistaking the watering of his eyes due to the hotness of the snuff for tears, pressed her hand to his chest.
‘My friend, you chastise yourself too much. You are a good husband and she is mistress of one of the more enviable households in Mayfair. And you are a loving father.’
‘Perhaps, but I have discovered a flaw within my physique. When I was studying phrenology, I read my own skull and found that the area for affection and friendship was overdeveloped to a degree of depravity, whereas the instinct of reproduction—located in the cerebellum—was practically non-existent. I decided then that I would not be victim to my own physiology, under any circumstance.’
Lady Morgan laughed, then realised the Colonel was serious.
‘Absolute poppycock,’ she replied. ‘No wonder the Austrian Emperor banned that charlatan Franz Gall. There is nothing I hate more than the notion that anything—particularly personality—is determined. I thought you had begun to have your own doubts about the legitimacy of such a science?’
‘I waver; there are moments when I find the logic of it convincing, and then in the next moment I no longer know my own mind. I think it of no use as a measure of intelligence, but as a diagnostic tool I still believe it to have some value.’
Eyes fixed on the dancers, the Colonel continued:‘I have certain penchants—some I have acted upon, others I have not. I thought marriage might be transforming, and for a few months it was.’
He watched his wife twirling on the dance floor and marvelled at how this middle-class creature had adapted to the challenges and rigidities of the milieu he had placed her in.
‘I love my son, Frances, more than I could have possibly imagined.’
Lady Morgan studied the man before her; it had been a twenty-year friendship, an odyssey that had taken them through several marriages (all hers), several deaths and, at one time, genuine affection. Suddenly she experienced a terrible epiphany that the Colonel’s self-diagnosis was probably correct; whether the science was sound or not, as long as he believed it, it was so. Not wanting to reveal her profound dismay, she studiously examined the diamond tiara of a young duchess holding court a few yards away. ‘James,’ she said, still not daring to look at him, ‘you must not condemn yourself for what you are. We all must make good within the limitations and constraints society places upon us; people look to us as an example.’
Each fell into a brief contemplation of their emotional follies, past and present.
Hamish and Lavinia completed their third rotation, the young man steering her around the crowded dance floor with a firm palm against the small of her back. As they waltzed he kept up a commentary on the social standing of the spectators, their faces a blur as they passed.
‘I am a great admirer of your husband’s work,’ he said, taking advantage of a lull in the music.
‘You and I both, Mr Campbell. Which particular area are you interested in?’
‘The application of craniology to the Amazonian savages.’
‘Savages? My husband would not agree with the use of that word; he has found great thinkers and artists amongst the Amazonian Indians and has the utmost respect for their rituals.’
‘So I have read. I have a huge respect for a man who has the independent means to explore his own interests, yet uses those interests to enhance scientific knowledge.’
‘And what are your professional intentions?’
As they passed the Colonel and Lady Morgan, Lavinia noticed the sadness upon her husband’s face, but the sight was quickly replaced by others as her body moved in the dance’s hypnotic patterns guided by the young man’s hands.
‘I wish to become an anthropologist, but, unlike Colonel Huntington, I do not have independent means and my father will only finance my studies if I agree to join him later in his business. Lady Morgan is my current patron; she has generously provided the funds for my first paper—a study of primitive Celtic rituals. If Colonal Huntington would only endorse it…I have also expressed a desire to see his collection of Amazonian artefacts, but I still await a response.’