Scorpion's Dance. Anne Mather

the beginning of June, the night of the Hunt Ball, and Mrs Gresham had worked solidly for over a fortnight getting the Hall ready for Lady Sanders’ guests who were staying overnight and going home the following day. There had been such an orgy of cleaning and polishing, and even Miranda had been roped in to fetch and carry for the domestics hired for the purpose. The meal itself had taken hours to prepare—smoked ham and melon, delicately-battered scampi, roast duckling, with peas and new potatoes, and Mrs Gresham’s special orange sauce, and peaches soaked in brandy. The wines, too, had been specially chosen, chilled to perfection, and Miranda had been enchanted by the sight of the table, its silver and crystal gleaming in the light of half a dozen scented candles.

      The dinner party was a success, and in gratitude for the work she had put in, Lady Sanders had suggested that as it was Miranda’s birthday the following week, perhaps Mrs Gresham might like to organise a small party for her.

      In later years, Miranda was to speculate upon the character of a woman who chose such a way to reward her housekeeper, but at that time the idea of a party had been so exciting to her that she had not stopped to think that perhaps her mother might have preferred less work rather than more.

      In any event, the party was arranged, and in spite of lowering clouds which had hung around all morning, the afternoon skies were clear. Miranda helped her mother, and old Croxley, the gardener, carried a trestle table out on to the lawn at the back of the house, and when it was set with sandwiches and pastries, cakes and jellies, and a huge jug of orange juice, to her eyes it looked every bit as good as Lady Sanders’ dinner table had done. Seven little girls had been invited, and Miranda was to occupy the seat at the head of the table, immediately behind the iced sponge cake with ‘Happy Birthday, Miranda’ written in tiny hundreds and thousands.

      The guests arrived and Miranda opened her presents with trembling fingers. There were books and crayons and handkerchiefs, and her best friend, Judith Masters, whose father taught at the village school, gave her a pretty pearl pendant that Miranda insisted on wearing at once. They played games and Mrs Gresham had packets of sweets for prizes, and then it was time for tea.

      Miranda presided over the table proudly, aping the odd occasions when she had peeped through the dining room door and seen Lady Sanders taking lunch with some of her friends from the Rotary Club. It was her first party, and she was determined it should be a success. Then it began to rain …

      Only a few spots at first, rather large spots that dropped just over Miranda’s head, and spattered on the carefully arranged inscription on the cake, making the decorations run together and partially obliterate her name.

      Miranda jumped to her feet at once, disappointment bringing an anxious frown to her forehead. Her mother had gone back into the house, leaving her in charge, but surely she must see the rain from her windows. She looked back towards the kitchen, but there was no sign of either her mother or Croxley, and then when one or two of the other girls told her to sit down again, to stop worrying, that it was probably only a shower, Miranda turned her face skyward to see a cloudless arc of blue.

      Then a huge drop of water fell in her eye, and she gasped and brought her hands to her face, as a veritable shower sprayed over the table and its occupants, bringing them all to their feet, gulping and protesting and giggling helplessly. Miranda didn’t giggle. Her reason told her it couldn’t be raining. The sky was clear; and besides, the leaves of the laurel hedge that shielded the kitchen garden from sight of the Hall were dry.

      And yet the shower just kept on coming, and her guests were so bemused by what was happening that they paid little attention to its source. But Miranda’s sharp eyes noticed how the shower arched over the hedge, and with an exclamation of fury, she dashed towards the bushes.

      Immediately there was smothered laughter, and the shower ceased as quickly as it had begun. Miranda paid no attention to that. With furious hands she tore aside the twigs and branches that held her back and burst through the hedge like a veritable virago.

      Beyond the hedge was the tap which Croxley used to operate the sprinkler system on the lawns in dry weather. Presently not needed, the sprinkler had been stored away in the garden shed, but someone had got it out. Someone who was presently disappearing round the corner of the house, a tall dark figure who was as unfamiliar to Miranda as she must be to him.

      She set out in pursuit, and then halted uncertainly, looking down in dismay at the pretty flowered dress her mother had made her specially for the party. Pushing through the hedge had torn the hem, and it was streaked with dirt as she was. Her hair, rust-coloured, and always unmanageably straight, had come loose from its braids and was presently straggling untidily about her shoulders, and the pearl pendant had disappeared, probably broken in the struggle.

      Her friends were shouting her from the other side of the hedge, and Mrs Gresham, alerted by their excitement, had come to see what was going on. Miserably, Miranda forced her way back through the hedge, and suffered the stifled giggles and compassionate glances of the other girls.

      ‘Miranda!’ Her mother was not prone to unwarranted sympathy. ‘What on earth has been going on?’

      At once half a dozen voices attempted to regale her with their version of the story, but Mrs Gresham waited until Miranda herself could explain. Half expecting her mother to disbelieve her, or alternatively find excuses for what had happened, Miranda was surprised to discover that Mrs Gresham seemed as angry as she was. Listening to what had happened, her face went first red, and then white, before she turned and walked silently into the house.

      Miranda stared after her worriedly, but the other girls clustered around, demanding to know what had happened, and she allowed herself to be swayed by the importance the incident had granted her. She accepted their sympathy as her right, and basked in their admiration of how she had sent whoever it was packing. She scarcely looked at the table, but when she did, she felt a lump rise in her throat at the sight of the ruined cake and waterlogged sandwiches. Only the jelly repelled the moisture, green and yellow islands in a transparent sea.

      Miranda was still standing there surrounded by her friends when her mother came back again, but she was not alone. With her was Lady Sanders—and a boy of perhaps fifteen or sixteen. He was tall for his age, thin, with angular features that were not enhanced by the dark pigmentation of his skin. His hair was thick and black, blacker than any hair Miranda had seen before, and she wondered what nationality he was. But she had no hesitation in identifying him as the instigator of that artificial rainstorm.

      She glared at him and was infuriated to discover that she could still see amusement in those darkly-lashed eyes, although his face bore an obediently solemn expression. She wondered who he was, and what he was doing at the Hall, and found herself praying that he was an intruder and that Lady Sanders was about to have him arrested.

      ‘As you can see, my lady, the table is ruined,’ her mother was saying, as they walked across the lawn together, accompanied by the abominable boy, and Lady Sanders nodded her head in agreement, and murmured some words of regret.

      Then they turned to the group of girls, and belatedly Miranda remembered that she should have washed her face and hands and combed her hair before appearing before anyone. As it was, she stood there, with the group of other girls, looking like a tattered parrot among so many pigeons. Lady Sanders saw her, exchanged a look with the boy at her side, and ignominy of ignominies, she started laughing. And when she laughed, the boy laughed, and that set all the girls giggling and laughing all over again. Only Mrs Gresham didn’t laugh, but that was small comfort to Miranda. With a sob of humiliation she brushed past all of them, rushing across the lawn and into the house, not stopping until she reached the sanctuary of her own room. She would never forgive them, she thought, not her friends, not Lady Sanders, and most particularly not that black-haired beast who had ruined the only party she had ever had …

      Of course, she got over it. She could even laugh about it in time, only never in Lady Sanders’ presence. That day was a turning point in her life, the day she began to realise the differences between the people of Lady Sanders’ world and her own.

      She learned that the boy was a distant relation of the late Lord Sanders, son of his cousin, Patrick Knevett, who had estates in Brazil, and who had scandalised