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After more than twenty years together, Pat and Fen were experts on stamina. In their individual circles, they were each admired—and feared, and cursed at—for being “tireless” women who could be counted on to get things done. It had become an unwritten tenet of Birmingham society: one engaged with Miss Carruth at one’s peril, and one had best believe wholeheartedly in one’s cause if one recruited her anyway, because one somehow ended up working twice as hard when in harness with her—and relegating her to “honorary chairwoman” was not a strategy one could resort to, because she somehow invariably managed to be supremely hands-on in that role without appearing to lift a finger.
But Miss Carruth was in demand regardless, because her involvement practically guaranteed the doubling of proceeds—though, in some cases, that was due not to an increase in ticket sales, but to discoveries of embezzlement or longstanding incompetence. It was surely a series of coincidences, as no one in their right mind could imagine frothy Miss Carruth as a chessmaster, and in any case what was more important was how she attracted new volunteers and fresh faces to one’s efforts. She had a knack for persuading energetic suffragists and shooting-school students to lend a hand to more conventional gatherings, and she had clearly exchanged favours with some benevolent deity who kept her supplied with phalanxes of charming, competent young men who were willing to discourse with dowagers and waltz with wallflowers and help ensure that everyone was having a good enough time to continue opening billfolds and pocketbooks.
Pat had never acquired Fen’s social stamina, but Fen was never going match her ability or desire to march across moors and clamber over hills and mountains, so that was quite all right: after the war, they had settled on her attending just one fête per week to Fen’s four or five, and their friends Archie and Daniel followed a similar formula for felicity. Archie liked being with people more than chatting with them, and Daniel liked talking to people more than he liked people in general, so it suited them all for Mr da Silva to accompany Miss Carruth through glittering, gossipy throngs while Pat and Archie remained at home, reading in companionable silence. In London, there was sufficient room in Archie’s so-called bachelor flat for two couples to co-exist comfortably, and upon converting her mansion into the hospital, Fen had transformed the carriage house on her property into living quarters that likewise accommodated two couples with ease.
They do all enjoy reading and watching plays, and another invisible but ironclad commandment among philanthropists is Thou Shalt Show Up For Those Who Show Up For You, so Fen tows them all to a midsummer masque to benefit a theatre troupe. Daniel makes a fine Theseus to her Hippolyta, and Pat is a most handsome Prospero. Archie has perhaps spent too much time lately with a collection of folktales illustrated by a recent Slade School graduate, because it inspires his incarnation of Wayland the Smith. Fen sees Daniel assessing how many heads are swivelling around in Archie’s wake to admire his still-imposing physique, and privately grins at how she will likely overhear cries of carnal possessiveness some hours hence. She is puzzled by why Sam Caldwell—here tonight as Puck—is looking pale, and she will point that out to Pat, who’s fond of the sensible lad and can interrogate him properly.
In the meantime, there is a stir at the entrance, where one of the troupe’s leading patrons has entered as the goddess Diana, cradling a bow in her right arm. The leash in her left hand is attached to the bear ambling amiably behind her. What has the crowd shrieking and clapping, however, are the cubs—that is, the Moreton grandchildren. The smallest one is riding on the shoulders of the bear, and the rest are exuberantly tumbling about, executing handsprings and flips and other acrobatic feats.
Daniel mutters to a grey-haired, grey-eyed cardinal to his left, “Very entertaining, but do tell William minor to put Sir Sylvester’s wallet back within the hour.”
The cardinal mutters back, “I saw that too. Overconfident brat, that one. Might I borrow your blacksmith to, ah, hammer some sense into him?”
Pat is smiling at the scene. The Countess of Moreton has been a friendly mentor and formidable ally, and it is always good to see her.
Fen’s gown as Queen of the Amazons is from a vaguely Elizabethan staging, with an abundance of trimmings. She tugs a ribbon free from her sleeve and loops it around Pat’s wrist.
She hears the hitch in Pat’s breath as silk strokes her skin, and savors the single blink of Pat’s eyes as she draws the ribbon tight. Daniel and Archie will not be the only couple in a near-frenzy by the time they all return home. It will be such fun to bait her love into new demonstrations of stamina.