‘Do you know what that is?’
‘Not the faintest idea. Sounds a bit like the Bible. You know, Moses and the Promised Land. We get that at Sunday School. It’s the same idea, surely? Old man, leading his flock to a new land and dying just as he gets there.’
‘Yet you read it and find fault.’
‘It’s not hard. The handwriting’s terrible though.’
Henary smiled bravely. ‘We must talk some more,’ he said. ‘Alas, it is now time for you to prepare for the evening.’ There was a slight tremor in his voice.
The next few hours were, in Rosie’s opinion, the most wonderful of her life. Lady Catherine returned and led her into a room — a whole series of rooms, in fact — which were full of all sorts of delightful things. Baths, thick cloths, bottles of strange substances; it was warm and comfortable there, with a thick pall of steam from hot water coming from one of the rooms, heavy smells of perfume coming from others.
‘Here I will leave you again,’ she said. ‘You will be in good hands.’
‘What are they going to do to me?’ Rosie asked in alarm.
‘Prepare you for the festivity. We cannot have an honoured guest looking like... well, you are not dressed quite properly. You will be washed, and prepared, and dressed.’
‘You make me sound like a chicken,’ Rosie said. ‘You’re not a witch, are you? I mean, like Hansel and Gretel?
‘Like who?’
‘You know. The story. The boy and a girl who get captured by a witch, and she fattens them up to eat them, then they push her in the oven and escape.’
‘Why do you want a witch? Are you ill? I could summon one from the village if there is something which ails you.’
‘Oh, no,’ Rosie said quickly. ‘No. Not in the slightest. Forget I said it.’
‘Very well.’ She clapped her hands and two women appeared, one scarcely older than Rosie and one about the same age as her mother. They went through the ritual of greeting once more.
‘We will meet again at dusk. Until then you must relax and cleanse your mind and body of all wearisome things.’
She left, and they began.
In the back of Rosie’s mind was still the thought that this might be an elaborate trap — although it seemed a lot of trouble to go to. It might be they were preparing her to become a human sacrifice — she had read about that. Or that they planned to eat her. Or something equally horrible and unpleasant.
But they were so nice and once it was clear they had no intention of listening to her protests — I’ve been doing my own bath since I was six, thank you very much — Rosie accepted that she had no choice but to give in.
Conversation was not very good — Rosie tried to ask them questions, but they just blushed and giggled when she did — so communication was limited to requests and instructions, delivered in a strange accent, very much as though they were speaking a foreign language which they knew only poorly. ‘If you would have the goodness to stand while we remove...?’
They did this, and were much less perturbed by Rosie standing there with nothing on than she was; then they bathed her, and led her to a table where she received her first massage, which she enjoyed greatly once she got used to it, although at the beginning she was still thinking actively about cannibalism. By the end — pummelled as she was — she was so relaxed she didn’t care. Let them eat her! She didn’t mind.
Then another long soapy bath, after which she was dried and anointed again with oil from head to toe. Next they wrapped her in thick towels and began on her feet, which elicited a tutting of disapproval. These they scraped and rubbed, then painted her toenails a bright red and slipped rings over her toes. One gold and two silver on each foot. Her hands were treated similarly.
Finally, they applied themselves to her head. Her hair was brushed like it had never been brushed before, with sweet-smelling liquids massaged into her scalp so it tingled. They cut it — how on earth would she explain that when she got home? If she ever did — and bound it up in a complicated arrangement which somehow stayed in place when they had finished. It never did when she tried it in her bedroom.
Rosie was almost asleep from the surfeit of sensations by this time, so she made no objection when they began on her face. This was again rubbed and massaged, her eyebrows plucked, her teeth violently cleaned, before they began on the make-up. Her mother had never allowed even the slightest hint of paint — though other girls her age were experimenting — so she would have become excited had she not been so relaxed. Lips, cheeks, eyelashes, eyebrows, nose, ears were all given full attention until Rosie could no longer even grasp what they were doing to her. Later she realised that they had not only cut her hair, they had dyed it as well. Oh, am I going to be in trouble, she thought. Finally they brought an extraordinary wig, long and golden, quite unlike her own hair, and carefully put it on her head, tucking her hair out of the way. It was surprisingly comfortable.
Then they were finished and — tentatively, nervously — held up a mirror for her to see herself.
Rosie gasped in utter astonishment. In the glass there stared back at her, wide-eyed with wonder, the face of an undeniably, amazingly, fabulously, magnificently beautiful young woman, the like of which she had never seen in a mirror before. ‘Lordy!’ she said reverently. ‘Just look at that!’
The servants smiled nervously, realised it was approval and then grinned broadly.
When she was finally ready, Rosie was taken to Lady Catherine’s private suite in the house, shown through the door and left alone with her.
She was so bewildered by this stage she had stopped thinking altogether. Nothing made sense. She could, of course, have behaved normally — stamped her feet, burst into tears and demanded to be taken home — but she suspected that would achieve nothing. This was all too elaborate to be some joke. Too solid to be a dream. Too strange to be anything other than real. She was dressed, manicured and coiffed more elaborately than any debutante or film star, being treated like some form of royalty and had no choice but to play her role. That might, at least, allow her to find out what all this was about. Meanwhile, she might as well enjoy herself. Worrying wasn’t going to make any difference.
Her idea of courtly behaviour came mainly from the novels of Jean Plaidy and the lesser Hollywood epics she saw on a Saturday morning at the Odeon. Not much, but in all of these silence and slow movement seemed to be the foundation of grace. The first was not her strong suit, but she had, often enough, practised being presented at court in the privacy of her little bedroom. She could do what was necessary.
To her vague disappointment, it wasn’t required, at least not yet. In her rooms Lady Catherine was relieved of her duties as Lady of the domain. There — and there alone — she could be herself. It was where she received Henary, for example, when she wanted a proper argument with him. Where she received those she trusted and liked, when she did not need the protection of her position. By Rosie’s standards she was still formal, but certainly less scary or strange.
‘Sit, Rosalind, please do.’
Lady Catherine was also transformed for the Festivity. She wore what Rosie guessed was a cloth-of-gold robe and had rings on every finger, one of gold, one of silver on each and all with stones in them. Her fair hair — which Rosie now realised was a wig as well — had been brushed with gold paint, so that it sparkled in the light. Around her were belts, several of them, across her chest, stomach and hips. The effect was very peculiar but, Rosie conceded, very attractive also. ‘You look very nice,’ she said. Lady Catherine smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You also look quite different.’
‘Don’t I just! Who would have thought! If Mummy could see me at the moment, she’d have a heart attack, I think.’