‘Ball, Matthew - the grandmothers insist on calling it a ball.’
‘There’s only one thing that can be described as a ball on these occasions.’
William laughed and looked at his watch. ‘They should start arriving in a couple of hours. Time for a bath and to get changed. Did you remember to bring a tuxedo?’
‘Yes. But if I hadn’t I could always wear my pyjamas. I usually leave one or the other behind, but I’ve never yet managed to forget both.’
‘I don’t think the grandmothers would approve of you turning up for the ball in your pyjamas.’
The caterers arrived at six o’clock, twenty-three of them in all, and the grandmothers at seven to oversee the preparations, regal in long black lace dresses that swept along the floor. William and Matthew joined them in the drawing room a few minutes before eight. William was about to remove an inviting red cherry from the top of a magnificent iced cake when he heard Grandmother Kane’s sentinel voice behind him.
‘Don’t touch the food, William, it’s not for you.’ He swung around. ‘Then who is it for?’ he asked, as he kissed her cheek.
‘Don’t be fresh, William. Just because you’re over six feet doesn’t mean I wouldn’t spank you.’
Matthew laughed.
‘Grandmother, may I introduce my closest friend, Matthew Lester?’
Grandmother Kane subjected Matthew to a careful appraisal through her pince-nez before venturing: ‘How do you do, young man?’
‘It’s an honour to meet you, Mrs Kane. I believe you knew my grandfather.’
‘Knew your grandfather? Caleb Longworth Lester? He proposed marriage to me once, over fifty years ago. Of course, I turned him down. I told him he drank too much and that it would lead him to an early grave. I was proved right, so don’t follow his example, either of you. Remember, alcohol dulls the brain.’
‘We hardly get much chance, with Prohibition,’ remarked Matthew innocently.
Mrs Kane ignored the comment, and turned her attention to the guest list.
The guests began to appear soon after eight, many of them complete strangers to their host, although he was delighted to see Alan Lloyd among the early arrivals.
‘You’re looking well, my boy,’ Alan said, finding himself looking up at William for the first time.
‘You too, sir. It was kind of you to come.’
‘Kind? Have you forgotten that the invitation came from your grandmothers? I’m possibly brave enough to refuse one of them, but both …’
‘You too, Alan?’ William laughed. ‘Can you spare a moment?’ He guided the chairman towards a quiet corner, where he wasted no more time on small talk. ‘I want to change my investment plan slightly, and start buying Lester’s Bank stock whenever it comes on the market. I’d like to be holding about five per cent of the company by the time I’m twenty-one.’
‘That won’t be easy,’ responded Alan. ‘Lester’s stock doesn’t often come on the market, because it’s all in private hands. But I’ll see what I can do. May I enquire what is going on in that mind of yours, William?’
‘Well, my long-term plan is—’
‘William!’ William turned to see Grandmother Cabot bearing down on them, a determined look on her face. ‘William, this is a ball, not a board meeting, and I haven’t seen you on the dance floor once this evening.’
‘Quite right,’ said Alan. ‘You come and sit down with me, Mrs Cabot, while I kick the boy out into the real world. We can watch the dancing and enjoy the music.’
‘Music? That’s not music, Alan. It’s nothing more than a cacophony of sound with no suggestion of melody.’
‘My dear grandmother,’ said William, ‘that is “Yes, We Have No Bananas”, the latest hit song by—’
‘Then the time has come for me to depart this world,’ said Grandmother Cabot, wincing.
‘Never,’ said Alan Lloyd gallantly.
William left them, and danced with a couple of girls he had a vague recollection of meeting in the past, although he needed to be reminded of their names. When he spotted Matthew sitting on a sofa in a corner he was glad of the excuse to escape the dance floor. He did not notice the girl sitting next to his friend until he was almost on top of them. When she looked up he felt his knees give way.
‘Do you know Abby Blount?’ asked Matthew casually.
‘No,’ said William, unable to take his eyes off her.
‘This is your host, Mr William Lowell Kane.’
The girl cast her eyes demurely downward as William sat beside her. Matthew had noted the look on William’s face, and left them to go off in search of some punch.
‘How is it I’ve lived in Boston all my life and we’ve never met?’ William asked.
‘We did meet once before, Mr Kane,’ said Abby. ‘On that occasion you pushed me into the pond on the Common. We were both three at the time. That was fourteen years ago, and I still haven’t forgiven you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said William, after a pause during which he searched in vain for a more witty reply.
Abby smiled, trying to put him at ease. ‘What a lovely house you have, William,’ she said.
There was another long pause. ‘Thank you,’ said William weakly. He glanced, trying not to look as if he was staring at her. She was slim - oh, so slim - with huge brown eyes, long eyelashes and a profile that would have made any man look a second time. Her auburn hair was bobbed in a style he had hated until that moment.
‘Matthew tells me you’re going to Harvard next year,’ she tried again.
‘Yes, I am. I mean, would you like to dance?’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
The steps that had come so easily a few minutes before now seemed to forsake him. He trod on Abby’s toes and continually propelled her into other dancers. He apologized, and she smiled. He held her a little more closely during the fourth dance.
‘Do we know that young woman who seems to have monopolized William for the past hour?’ Grandmother Cabot asked suspiciously.
Grandmother Kane picked up her pince-nez and studied the girl accompanying William through the open bay windows and out onto the lawn.
‘Abigail Blount,’ Grandmother Kane declared.
‘Admiral Blount’s granddaughter?’ enquired Grandmother Cabot.
‘Yes.’
Grandmother Cabot gave a slight nod, showing a degree of approval.
William guided Abby to the far end of the garden, and stopped by a large chestnut tree that he had only used in the past for climbing.
‘Do you always try to kiss a girl the first time you meet her?’ asked Abby.
‘To be honest,’ said William, ‘I’ve never kissed a girl before.’
Abby laughed. ‘I’m very flattered.’
She offered him her pink cheek, but then said it was too cold to stay outside and insisted on being taken back indoors. The grandmothers observed their return with undisguised relief.
After all the guests had left, the two boys walked around the garden, chatting about the evening.
‘Not a bad party,’ said Matthew. ‘Almost worth the trip from New York to the provinces, despite your stealing my girl.’
‘Do you think she’ll help me lose my virginity?’ asked William, ignoring Matthew’s mock accusation.
‘Well, you’ve got two weeks to find out. But I suspect you’ll discover she hasn’t lost hers yet.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ asked William.
‘Just the way she looked at you. Virgins always blush. I’m willing to bet you five dollars she doesn’t succumb even to the charms of William Lowell Kane.’
The two men shook hands.
William planned his campaign carefully. Losing his virginity was one thing, but losing five dollars to Matthew Lester was quite another. He saw Abby almost every day after the ball, taking advantage for the first time of owning his own home and car. He began to feel he would do better without the discreet but persistent chaperonage of Abby’s parents, who seemed always to be in the middle distance, and he was not any nearer his goal when the last day of the holidays dawned.
Determined not to lose his five dollars, he sent Abby a dozen roses that morning, took her out to an expensive dinner at Joseph’s in the evening and finally succeeded in coaxing her back to the Red House that night.
‘How did you get hold of a bottle of whiskey?’ asked Abby.
‘It’s not difficult if you know the right people,’ William boasted.
The truth was that he had hidden a bottle of Henry Osborne’s bourbon in his bedroom soon after he had departed, and was now glad he hadn’t poured it down the drain as he’d originally planned.
The alcohol made William gasp and Abby’s eyes water. He sat down beside her and put his arm confidently around her shoulder. She settled into it.
‘Abby, I think you’re terribly pretty,’ he murmured at her auburn curls.
She gazed at him earnestly, her brown eyes wide open. ‘Oh, William,’ she breathed. ‘And I think you’re just wonderful.’
She leaned back, closed her eyes and allowed him to kiss her on the lips for the first time. Thus emboldened, William slipped a tentative hand from her wrist onto her breast. He left it there like a traffic cop halting an advancing stream of automobiles. She indignantly pushed it away to allow the traffic to move on.
‘William, you mustn’t do that.’
‘Why not?’ said William, struggling vainly to retain the initiative.
‘Because you can’t tell where it might end.’
‘I’ve got a fair idea.’
Before he could renew his advances, Abby rose hastily from the sofa and smoothed her dress.
‘I think I ought to be getting home, William.’
‘But you’ve only just arrived.’
‘Mother will want to know what I’ve been doing.’
‘You’ll be able to tell her - nothing.’
‘And I think it’s best it stays that way,’ she replied.
‘But I’m going back tomorrow,’ - he avoided saying ‘to school’ - ‘and I won’t see you for three months.’
‘Well, you can write to me, William.’
Unlike Valentino, William knew when he was beaten. ‘Yes, of course I will,’ he said. He rose, straightened his tie, took Abby by the hand and drove her home.
The following day, back at St Paul’s, Matthew Lester accepted the proffered five-dollar bill with his eyebrows raised in mock astonishment.
‘Say one word, Matthew, and I’ll chase you right around the school with a baseball bat.’
‘I can’t think of any words that would truly express my deep feeling of sympathy for you.’
‘Matthew,’ he warned, ‘right around the school.’
William became aware of his housemaster’s wife during his last term at St Paul’s.
Mrs Raglan was a good-looking woman, a little slack around the stomach, and her hips could have been slimmer, but she carried her splendid bosom well, and the thick dark hair piled on top of her head was no more streaked with grey than was becoming. One Saturday when William had sprained his wrist on the hockey field, Mrs Raglan bandaged it for him in a cool compress, standing a little closer than was necessary, allowing William’s arm to brush against her breast. He enjoyed the sensation. On another occasion, when he had a fever and was confined to the sick room for a few days, she brought him his meals herself and sat on his bed, her body touching his legs through the thin covering while he ate. He enjoyed that too.
She was rumoured to be Rags Raglan’s second wife. None of the boys could imagine how Rags had managed to secure even one spouse, and Mrs Raglan occasionally indicated by the subtlest of sighs and silences that she shared something of their incredulity at her fate.
As part of his duties as house captain, William was required to report to Rags every night at ten-thirty once he had completed the lights-out round and was about to go to bed himself. One Monday evening when he knocked on Rags’s door, he was surprised to hear Mrs Raglan’s voice bidding him to enter. She was lying on a chaise longue dressed in a loose silk robe of faintly Japanese appearance.
William kept a firm grasp on the cold doorknob. ‘All the lights are out and I’ve locked the front door, Mrs Raglan. Good night.’
She swung her legs onto the ground, and a pale flash of stockinged thigh appeared momentarily from under the draped silk.
‘You’re always in such a hurry, William. You can’t wait for your life to begin, can you?’ She walked over to a side table. ‘Why don’t you stay and have some hot chocolate? Silly me, I made enough for two - I quite forgot that Mr Raglan won’t be back until Saturday morning.’ There was a definite emphasis on the word ‘Saturday’.
She carried a steaming cup over to William and looked at him to see whether the significance of her remarks had registered. Satisfied, she smiled and passed him the cup, allowing their hands to touch. He stirred the hot chocolate vigorously.
‘Gerald is attending a conference,’ she continued. It was the first time he had ever heard Mr Raglan’s first name. ‘Do shut the door, William, and come and sit down.’
William hesitated; he shut the door, but he did not feel he could sit in Rags’s chair, nor did he want to sit next to Mrs Raglan. He decided Rags’s chair was the lesser of two evils, and moved towards it.
‘No, no,’ she said, and patted the seat beside her.
William shuffled across and sat down nervously by her side, staring into his cup for inspiration. Finding none, he gulped the contents down, burning his tongue. He was relieved when Mrs Raglan stood up. She refilled his cup, ignoring his murmured protest, then moved silently across the room, wound up the Victrola and placed the needle on a record. He was still looking at the floor when she returned.
‘You wouldn’t let a lady dance by herself, would you, William?’
She began swaying in time to the music. William stood up and put his arm formally around her waist, as if they were in the middle of a crowded dance floor. Rags could have fitted in between them without any trouble. After a few bars she moved closer to William, and he stared over her right shoulder fixedly to indicate that he had not noticed that her left hand had slipped from his shoulder to the small of his back. When the music stopped, William assumed he would have a chance to return to the safety of his hot chocolate, but she had turned the record over and was back in his arms before he could sit down.
‘Mrs Raglan, I think I ought to—’
‘Relax a little, William.’
At last he found the courage to look into her eyes. He tried to reply, but he couldn’t speak. Her hand was now exploring his back, and he felt her thigh move gently against his groin. He tightened his hold around her waist.
‘That’s better,’ she said.
They circled the room, closely entwined, slower and slower, keeping time with the music as the record gently ran down. When it stopped she slipped away and switched off the light. William stood in the near dark, not moving, hearing the rustle of silk as he watched her discard her clothes.
The crooner had completed his song, and the needle was still scratching as the record continued to spin. William stood motionless in the middle of the room. Mrs Raglan took off his jacket, then led him back to the chaise longue. He groped for her in the dark, his shy novice’s fingers encountering several parts of her body that did not feel at all as he had imagined they would. He withdrew them hastily to the comparatively familiar territory of her breasts. Her fingers exhibited no such reticence, and he began to feel sensations he had never dreamed possible. He wanted to shout out loud but checked himself, fearing it would wake the boys sleeping above him. She undid his fly buttons, and began to pull off his trousers.
