Dancing On Snowflakes

by Malcolm Macdonald

Genres: Holiday books; Sagas; Victorian Romance

Synopsis

Chaperoned at every turn in her Dublin home, Kate O'Barry's horizons have been limited. When her exasperated parents pack her off to her uncle's house in Stockholm hoping that her infatuation with an unsuitable young man will pass, they have no idea what mischief their decision will cause. Kate sets out to experience life on her own terms, from the fairytale castle of Valholm, hereditary seat the dashing Count Hamilton, to the wretched tenements of the poor. Along the way she learns important lessons - about independence, responsibility and love.

Release date: October 10, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 341

Sample

KATY O’BARRY was born Katarina Oberg — not in Sweden, which provided her nationality, but in Dublin, where she had lived since her birth in 1876. However, since the Swedish pronunciation of Oberg is closer to ‘ooh-berry’ than ‘oh-burg,’ her father gladly accepted the name of ‘O’Barry’ as a gift from the Irish nation. The fact that O’Barry is a nonexistent clan was all to the good, for it meant he could take it with vacant possession. He had been living in it, and living up to it, for more than twenty years by the time Katy, his only child, ‘came out’ — that is, was presented along with several hundred other young ladies to the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle.

The great event had taken place two days ago — an occasion in which tedium and terror were so evenly mingled that Katy had since done her best to forget it entirely; the Lord Lieutenant had kissed the heavily powdered cheeks of more than a hundred females by the time her turn came round and his beard had looked as if he unglued it each night and stored it in a flour sack. But tonight was to make up for it all. Tonight, as a fully fledged young lady, out in the world at last and ready to fly the nest, she was to attend her first St Patrick’s Ball, which was also, as it happened, held at Dublin Castle. Surely, she felt, it would be the most exciting night of her life.

Indeed, as it proved, it was to be most momentous night of her life, as well.

Part of her excitement lay in the sheer magnificence of St Patrick’s Hall itself, which (as any Dubliner will confirm) has no equal throughout the British Empire. Of course, like any other tourist, she had paid her sixpence and gaped at its grandeur. But nothing she had seen on that rather cold, gray afternoon could have prepared her for the sight of it on this great evening of the ball — the highlight of the Dublin Season of 1897. For tonight the windows were all hung about with gay bunting; never had the regalia of the Order of St Patrick — the banners and paintings — been deployed to such sublime effect. On that earlier visit she had felt rather dwarfed by the gold and white corinthian pilasters and the massive cornices and entablatures that soared above them, in tier upon tier; but now, when bathed in the brilliance of ten thousand candles, they seemed warmer and she felt delightfully at home among them.

She wished she might say the same about the throng of guests, for this, the widest, longest, and loftiest of all the state apartments, was already alive with the bustle of ever so many revellers — the greater part of the Upper Three Thousand of Irish society. The men were in court dress or full military undress, and the ladies all in silk and chiffon, in whose folds gleamed every jewel they possessed. The glitter and the sparkle quite took Katy’s breath away and, to her shame, as she entered that vast and animated salon arm in arm with her dear friend, Amelia O’Dowd, she forgot all her good resolutions about remaining cool and utterly blasé and metropolitan, and instead gave out a gasp of astonishment that would have shamed a country cousin straight off the bog.

Amelia, as always, covered up wonderfully for the gaffe. “Me, too,” she said with a sigh that might almost have been a gasp. “No matter how familiar one is with this place, it still takes one aback to see it in the light of all these candles.”

Katy smiled gratefully. It was very brave of Amelia to remind everyone within earshot how familiar she was with the Castle. Of course, what she meant was that the O’Dowds, though Roman Catholics, were very thick with the powers-that-be — ‘the Castle crowd,’ in popular parlance. But a mean-spirited listener might equally well have remembered that poor Amelia had attended every ball throughout last year’s Season and hadn’t managed to catch a sniff of a husband; and this Season she had already been to two state balls and a dozen private supper-dances — with the same dismal lack of result.

“Can you see him at all?” Katy murmured under her breath. “I knew I overdid the belladonna. I’m blind as an owl at noon, now.”

“See who?”

“See who!” she echoed scornfully. “Who d’you think? I don’t want to gawp in case people remark upon it.”

Amelia continued to stare at her blankly, pretending she did not understand a word.

“Tskoh!” Katy let go of her friend’s arm and looked around, trying to appear as fashionably weary as possible.

Despite the effects of the belladonna — which dilated her pupils to great, dark pools of mystery (and made focusing almost impossible) — she saw him almost at once. The whole world seemed to shimmer and dissolve about her — all except that focal centre where he stood, darkly handsome and brooding. Her heart skittered about in her chest like soap in a bathtub. And then a moment later she had to stifle a little scream of terror as their eyes met … and he smiled … and turned and started making his way toward her!

“Dear God I can’t breathe!” she murmured. “Would you look at him there!”

“Oh Kate!” Amelia placed herself between her and the young man — the rather common young man, in her well-bred opinion — who held the poor colleen in such inexplicable thrall. “If anyone else behaved like this, over any other fella but that one, you’d laugh your head off, so you would.”

The good thing about it was that Katy was doing all the wrong things to catch and keep Mr Declan Butler; unfortunately, they were all the right things to invite his seduction and later abandonment of her. Katy knew it, too, though she’d never admit it out loud; all she’d say was she didn’t care and she couldn’t help herself.

She said it again now.

“It’s when he helps himself you’ll start to worry,” Amelia warned her darkly. “Now be sure to give him no more than the one dance.”

“The last waltz,” Katy murmured ecstatically. Under her breath she added, “And the last of every other set as well.”

“Here’s your mother now.” Amelia’s tone was half warning, half sigh of relief.

“I said to wait,” Mrs O’Barry exclaimed crossly. “That stupid cloakroom attendant! If his head wasn’t glued on, he’d have fallen out of the last shower of rain.”

Mrs O’Barry still muddled her Irish idioms when she was flustered. “Now remember, Pappa expects you to dance with as many gentlemen as possible this evening. We have lots of important confrères here.”

“Am I in his balance sheets then?” her daughter asked tartly. “What heading I wonder? Stock-in-trade?”

“Fixtures, more likely!” Amelia laughed, to persuade Mrs O’Barry it was just a jolly notion.

“Written-down assets more likely still,” Mrs O’Barry muttered — then, catching sight of the approaching Declan, she broke into a wide but frosty smile and exclaimed, “Ah, Mister Butler!”

“Mrs O’Barry, ma’am!” He swept up her hand and kissed it with a fervour too stylized to be anything but mocking. “I never saw you looking so young and alluring, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. If you’ll take over your daughter’s programme, I’ll fill every space you have.” His eyes dwelled mischievously in hers, leaving no doubt as to what space he referred to nor what sort of filling he had in mind.

Mrs O’Barry was gripped by two powerful but contrary emotions. Declan Butler was undoubtedly one of the most handsome men she had ever met; more than that, he radiated a sort of magnetic pull that set every danger alarm ringing within her. The very air about him seemed charged with a strangely life-enhancing power; it was as if an invisible limelight followed him around, picked him out, and gave him a golden aura — the sort of aura one feels rather than sees. The contrary emotion was much easier to show for it was the protective instinct of a mother with a maiden daughter to steer through the minefield of courtship into the safe haven of a virgin marriage.

“One dance and one dance only,” she said peremptorily — hoping that the flush she felt on her neck and ears was not a visible blush.

“Mamma!” Katy said solicitously. “Do loosen your mantilla. You look quite hot, suddenly.”

“The room is hot, that’s all!” the woman said crossly, and turned toward Amelia so as to break off the exchange.

It was all the opportunity Katy needed. “Here?” she asked Declan, holding up her programme and pointing with trembling fingers to the last of the Irish set.

“Mm-hmm.” His tone was uncertain but his nod (unnoticed by the mother) was emphatic enough.

“Here?” The little silver pencil darted on and came to rest in the space for the last of the quadrilles.

“Mm-hmm.”

And so it continued inexorably toward the pinnacle of the final waltz. Five dances were earmarked, though no name was scribbled in the corresponding place in her programme. Katy funked the final suggestion. The point of the silver pencil hovered near the final space on her card but no word could she utter.

“Sure why not!” he said lightly, slipping an arm about her waist and giving an amiable squeeze.

Mrs O’Barry bridled at the sight of this intimacy. It alarmed her, too, not so much the gesture itself as the intense feeling it aroused in her — a feeling more of jealousy than of anger. She drew a deep breath and held it, as if determined to crowd out the sudden flush of her emotion.

Declan turned and grinned at her, a lopsided sort of grin that had the effect of closing one of his eyes more than the other; it looked suspiciously like a wink. Mrs O’Barry opened her fan and applied it with vigour. “One dance only?” she asked.

With an air of triumph Katy held up her programme for inspection.

“Hah!” Her mother’s feelings were divided between pleasure that Katy had for once, seemingly, obeyed her and annoyance that the single permitted dance was the coveted last waltz. “Why torment yourself?” she asked when Declan had gone to apportion out his favours among the other debutantes. “Your father will never consent to your marrying him.”

“Why not?”

It was not, of course, the first time they had pursued this topic. Katy only asked so as to provoke her mother’s usual answer — “Because!” It would then allow her to launch into a spirited rendering of her own views.

“Because he’s worthless,” her mother chose to say this time.

It quite took the wind out of Katy’s sails. Before they had time to fill again, the other added: “And he’ll never marry you without your father’s blessing.”

“He might.” But Katy’s tone carried little conviction; she looked to Amelia for support.

Her friend was adding a young officer’s name to her own programme; the subaltern begged Katy to grant him a dance as well. During the time it took to add his name her belligerence evaporated.

Her mother rubbed in the salt: “Your father has too much power in Dublin for you or the likes of that young man to flaunt him.”

“Flout him, you mean.” Katy’s correction was glum and automatic. She knew her mother spoke the truth. And if you had power in Dublin, you could make them uneasy in West Cork and Donegal, too, so there’d be no escaping his wrath — not on this island.

“And what sort of man is he, anyway?” Mrs O’Barry took advantage of her daughter’s unaccustomed lack of argument. “A horse coper! A glorified horse coper!”

“He buys Irish remounts for the best regiments in the British army.” Katy spoke sweetly to Amelia, as if excusing her poor, eccentric mother’s inability to comprehend the difference.

“A horse coper,” Amelia said as sweetly back.

“Thank you, dear.” Katy’s tone was cool as she drew her mantilla primly about her. “Well-well-well! I have secured two dances, anyway. One in an hour’s time and one three hours after that. What a giddy evening it’s going to be! Will my feeble constitution stand up to such a fantastic whirl?”

Ten minutes later, however, young officers and gentlemen were looking in bewilderment at her programme and wondering why she was claiming no more room. They were too well bred, however, to let it show in their expressions, so Mrs O’Barry was none the wiser — and she, too, had had a drop too much of the belladonna and could see no more than a blur when Katy dared show her how brilliantly she had been engaged. “How one has grown since one last saw one!” Katy said in Swedish, which always had a softening effect on her mother’s mood.

“Oh, let’s bury the axe this one night at least,” she replied, hugging her daughter warmly.

“Hatchet!” Katy flung over her shoulder as the band struck up and a dragoon whisked her off for the first of the dances.

Throughout the British Empire a state ball opens with a quadrille in which only the sovereign, or her viceroy, and half a dozen of the grandest nabobs take part; the rest of the assembly, from belted earls down to plain misters, stand with their ladies behind silken ropes to watch and applaud. The only exception throughout all the length and breadth of those mighty dominions is the St Pat’s at Dublin Castle, which Queen Victoria herself declared to be the most magnificent and the most sparklingly good-humoured of them all. True, it was still opened by the viceroy and a few grandees, but instead of the stately quadrille they pranced about to the lightsome strains of Irish jigs and reels. Then, as the applause died down, the silken ropes were removed and the floor opened for the remainder of the Irish set — and the gavottes and waltzes, the turkey-trots and one-steps, the mazurkas, the schottisches, and the Sir Roger de Coverleys enjoyed by the common herd, from plain misters up to belted earls and beyond.

That evening Katy never scaled the giddy heights where belted earls and their heirs have their stamping ground, but she could claim two viscounts and a baronet before it was time to pause for refreshment. By then she had enjoyed three of her promised half-dozen dances with Declan. During the first she had been relieved to see her mother deep in earnest conversation with Mrs Considine, the only sort of conversation that was possible with that particular lady; she was even more delighted when, before the second even began, she saw her slip out to the ladies’ room. During the third, however, her luck ran out. They finished the dance mere feet away from where Mrs O’Barry was standing in frosty silence, her back to one of the great pilasters.

“That was not the last waltz,” she said sternly. “Katy! Find your next partner and ask him to take you for refreshments. Young man! You and I have a bone to chew.”

“Pick!” Katy said as she went in search of her next partner.

He was a rather dashing young Guards officer; the sight of him made her quite forget her mother’s parting instructions — and in any case, she wanted to keep an eye on her and Declan.

However, after two fruitless scans of the ballroom, once on each circuit, it became quite clear that they had left the hall entirely. Puzzled, pleased, slightly apprehensive, Katy then applied herself heart and soul to the rituals of the dance. She and her partner talked of the brilliance and success of the Season, the clemency of the weather, the sprightliness of the band, and (a touch of daring, here) the excellence of the musical comedy then showing at the hall in Tivoli. Katy smiled and her eyes sparkled and she threw back her head and laughed prettily and no one would ever have guessed that her heart was now full of misgivings.

She kept up her insouciant joviality through several more dances with other, interchangeable young men, by which time it was the proper hour for the buffet supper; her squire for that feast was one John Fitzpatrick. She knew him well, for they both belonged to the St Stephen’s Green Drama Society. The O’Barrys actually lived round the corner in Harcourt Street, but they counted as St Stephen’s Green for the purposes of the Dram Soc, which was not exactly awash with pretty young ladies. John talked to her of the brilliance and success of the Season, the clemency of the weather, the sprightliness of the band, and (even more daring, here) the possibility of going to see the musical comedy then showing at the hall in Tivoli. Katy continued to smile and her eyes persisted in sparkling, though by now her alarm at her mother’s absence was considerable.

They had just reached the sorbet when a nearby conversation intruded on theirs. They were standing in the shadow of a square pillar and the voices — of two young men — came from just around the corner. Katy had been vaguely aware that the rascals were discussing ‘the fillies’ at the ball that night. She had even pricked up her ears a couple of times when they appeared to be discussing someone she knew; but every other word was drowned in the general hubbub so she had soon given up. However, she heard one of them say, “Who was the pretty, dark-haired one who had three dances with Declan Butler early on?” … and the other replied, “The one with the amazing eyes?” … and the first said, “Yes.” Then, indeed, her every nerve strained to catch their every word above the clamour. For, of course, there was only one pretty, dark-haired girl with amazing eyes in the whole of Dublin and she did not need to hear the second fellow say, “Miss Katy O’Barry,” to know it.

In fact, she did not hear the second fellow say her name at all because she was desperately signalling to young Fitzpatrick not to intervene — which he was plainly ready to do.

“I’m surprised you don’t know her,” said the second fellow. “Her father’s that Swede with a finger in every pie. More Irish than the Irish, as they say.”

“Larry O’Barry? I never knew he had a daughter — certainly not a little corker like that. But God, I know himself!”

“Why d’you say it in that tone?”

“He had dealings with my father.”

“Profitable, I hope?”

“Sure, aren’t they all when that fellow’s in it! Poor girl, though — to be stuck on a gobshite like Declan Butler!”

Katy clenched her fists; her nostrils flared; the blood drained from her cheeks. She was just about to step out from behind the pillar when John Fitzpatrick intervened and stopped her. With one oblique nod of his head and one chagrinned pursing of his lips he managed to imply it was too late now to reveal their eavesdropping; she’d made this bed and must lie in it.

Thus she missed the next exchange between the two young blackguards. By the time she picked up the thread they were discussing her amazing eyes. “Oriental,” the first fellow said knowingly.

“Depends what you mean by oriental. Old Eli says her mother’s from Lapland. It could come from there.”

His colleague sounded dubious. “Sure I don’t know what sort of eyes the girls would have in Lapland, and I doubt if Eli does, either.”

Old Eli was head of the anatomy school, well known in Dublin.

“Lapland is it?” the other asked with a sudden, bright chuckle. “Well, I have it on the authority of Professor Gray, Twelfth Edition, that in Lapland the girls have only one eye, and they keep it tight shut most of the time. But when it sees a real man, doesn’t it wink and weep as well as any other!”

John Fitzpatrick grabbed her firmly by the wrist and pulled her away from the pillar.

“They have no idea what they’re talking about,” Katy told him angrily. “The Lapps have two eyes like any other Christian soul. Anyway, my eyes are Magyar, not oriental. My great-grandmother was from Hungary.”

“They’re beautiful eyes, anyway, Katy, wherever they come from — as I believe I told you before.”

She smiled at him. “I believe you did, John.”

All the young people in the Dram Soc had the privilege of using each other’s Christian names.

“Who were those two spalpeens?” she asked.

“Medical students!” he sneered. “For my part I rank them somewhere below ratcatchers.”

“How d’you know they’re medical students?” she asked. “Are you acquainted with them?”

“I’m familiar with the type,” he replied darkly. “And the particular sense of humour.”

“They were quite complimentary,” she pointed out in their defence. “The bits I understood, anyway.”

Once she made that qualification he agreed wholeheartedly. “Particularly about your father,” he added. “So it’s not always true that eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves.”

“No. I must tell Mamma about that.”

She thanked him and they parted. Only then did she begin to think about that remark of the two students — where they pitied her for being so stuck on Declan. Was that the general opinion of her? She did not know those two young men, and they obviously knew her only by sight. Yet they could see her heart on her sleeve. Lord, was it as obvious as all that? She felt her mouth go dry and her stomach hollow at the thought. Why was everyone so down on poor Declan, anyway? It was pure snobbery. Just because he was related to the Butlers, the great lords of Kilkenny with half of west Leinster in their pockets, though he hadn’t a penny to his own name except what he earned by his wit and his dealing.

The thought of the poor dear man and the fight he had against a hostile world filled her with familiar melting sensations toward him. It was so unfair. One day she’d inherit all her parents’ wealth. God send it was many years off — that dread hour. Yet, in the very nature of things, it would come to pass. Then she and her darling boy would be enabled to thumb their noses at all the world … But could they wait that long?

The darling boy himself sidled up to her at that moment. “Thank God I found you,” he said in a tone that managed to be both casual and solemn at the same moment. He put up his hands to fend off a hug she could never have brought herself to give him, dearly as she would have loved to.

John Fitzpatrick saw the adoration flood her whole expression — and despaired. How, having just overheard that brutally candid opinion of her infatuation for the Butler lad, could she not step just a little more warily where even a fool would fear to tread? “Where’s Mamma?” she asked, in a tone that implied: “When the cat’s away …”

“Ah!” he dipped his head ruefully. “Something has disagreed with her, I fear. I’ve found her a quiet corner in one of the anterooms and I’m to ask Mrs Considine to chaperon you and Amelia for the time being.” He smiled engagingly at both her and Fitzpatrick, who smiled coolly back.

“I must go to her.” Katy was full of concern now, and not a little ashamed of her earlier attitude.

“Fear not!” Declan restrained her with a grand gesture. “All she requires is a little rest and she’ll be right as rain.”

“But she may be ill.”

“Doctor Walshe says not.”

“Is he here?” she asked in surprise. She had never thought of Doctor Walshe as being ‘in Society.’

“Don’t worry,” Declan assured her. “All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. I’ll stand guard over her and keep the world at bay. She’ll be on her pins again before the last waltz. No one will filch that from us.”

His tone made her aware that, whatever about the last waltz, her mother had neatly filched Declan’s two remaining dances with her. Now she began to doubt that her mother was ill at all. A likely tale!

As Katy let him lead her to Mrs Considine, a further and even more disturbing thought crossed her mind. Her mother’s motives she could understand … but why should Declan sacrifice the pleasures of the ball to stand guard in a remote and cheerless anteroom? Any castle flunkey could do that.

At first it baffled her but the more she thought about it, the more obvious the answer became — and a smile spread to her face and her spirit relaxed. At first the thought was so delicious that she hardly dared put it into words — not even in secret to herself. But when she told Amelia what Declan was doing, and the girl immediately voiced the same bewilderment, she could no longer hold her joy back.

“Don’t you see!” she babbled. “It’s to get Mamma on his side — to make her intercede for him with Pappa.”

Amelia frowned. “He’s never shown the slightest interest in winning her around before.”

“Exactly!” Katy crowed. “So doesn’t that prove it? He’s taking a serious interest at last! I truly believe he is.”

There was a pause. Her friend looked at her with great, troubled eyes and said pityingly: “I know you do.”

“Oh, Amelia, it’s all coming to a head.”

Amelia hugged her tight as she said, “I’m rather afraid you’re right, my dear.”

* * *

Mrs O’Barry was silent as the three of them drove home from the Castle that night. Katy and Amelia relived their more exalted moments with gushes of scorn — to show that they hadn’t been in the least overawed by the grandeur of the setting nor the pomp of the occasion. Every now and then they forgot themselves and enthused giddily over a particularly dashing cavalry officer or an especially striking young heir but they always recollected themselves in time; then they drew back from the brink of girlish bathos and dispatched the young hopeful with a wicked barb. And so it continued all the way back to Dawson Street, where Amelia was safely restored to her family.

There they took a small glass of port, and no one was tactless enough to ask if the dear girl was in any way nearer to having an engagement ring slipped upon her finger. Her brittle gaiety and the rather desperate glint in her eyes answered that question before it was asked. Then with sad resignation the O’Dowds retired to their beds for what was left of the night.

And with a similar resignation — though in her case more anxious than sad — Katy followed her mother back to their coach to travel the remaining half mile to Harcourt Street. The woman’s continuing silence made her uneasy.

For Katy there was not one adult world but many, all of them remote and full of mystery. Her father’s was perhaps remotest of all — a masculine world of nods and winks, of grave countenances and sudden eruptions of laughter, of buttonholings and elbow squeezings, backslaps and handshakes, and of oblique allusions to unknown proverbs (‘As the actress said …’ or ‘All my eye and you-know-what …’ and so forth). Her attempts to penetrate this world of secrets were met with stonewall advice not to bother her pretty little head with such matters.

Her mother’s world, though less remote — in the sense that Katy inhabited its outer fringes most of the time — was, curiously, even more secretive. It was full of Significant Looks, Meaningful Ejaculations, and Knowing Movements of the Eyebrows. A single drawn-out sigh of, ‘Well …!’ could imply a myriad of comments from ‘… some people can get away with murder,’ all the way along the scale to ‘… we could have predicted that tragedy from the very outset, couldn’t we!’ Her mother and the other matrons in that magic circle shared a secret that must never be spoken — or perhaps it need never be spoken, since it seemed to be in the forefront of their minds almost all the waking day.

To Katy it was rather like a hastily done-up birthday present — the wrapping was so thin she could feel bits of it and discover its overall shape, though the precise nature of the thing itself remained tantalizingly obscure. It was a vast secret, too, since it impinged upon her life in almost every aspect.

“Put on your gloves before you leave the house.”

“Change out of that dress. You’ve been wearing it for hours.”

“We don’t recognize that person, my dear.”

“Practise your scales; if you have no feeling for music, at least you can develop precision.” Precision was an especially Swedish obsession — and anyway, she did have an ear for music, she just lacked fingers for the pianoforte.

“Unpick that embroidery and do it again. You want to have something you can show with pride to your own children one day, don’t you?”

“If you can’t account to me for a little pocket-money each week, how d’you expect to account to your husband for the housekeeping money one day?”

“Wait until you grow up and have babies of your own — you’ll laugh at such silly notions then!”

It was all to do with answering to husbands and having babies of her own one day — that much at least was clear. The whole of her life — every little grace note she played upon the piano, every tiny stitch she dabbed into that ever-more-hateful embroidered rose — was shaped, aimed, and dedicated to that one end. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else even existed.

Its practical effect was that her mother burbled with Sound Advice from cock-crow to owl-hoot. Like a cattle drover with but a single heifer to deliver into the ring, she plied her stick in a thousand gentle, unhurtful prods every step of life’s way. And that was why her silence on this particular night was so unnerving.

Even worse, it was not the silence of the impending storm. Katy knew what that sounded like. It was full of explosive little sighs, as when pent-up breath is let out in mounting exasperation. It implied that her mother was busy choosing which verbal whips and lashes to employ when the storm finally broke. But this silence was ruminative, remote, almost wistful. It was as if, for once, her mother was lost in thoughts of her own rather than in cares for her dear and only daughter’s welfare.

In a flash of insight Katy realized that such, indeed, was the case: Her mother was well and truly wrapp