Free The House of Hardie by Anne Melville

white her bare arms would be! How straight she wouldhold herself, allowing a
décolleté
bodice to show her neck and shoulders to advantage. If she were to be his partner, he could legitimately take her hand, turn her into his arms, place his own hand lightly on her back, hold her closer as they spun round the floor in a waltz or a reel. If only …
    But there was no point in thinking along such lines. He had already promised his sister that he would take her to Magdalen’s Eights Week Ball. Sternly he dismissed his imaginings. It must be enough to enjoy the pleasures of the day. With a practised hand, he sent the first champagne cork flying into the air.

Chapter Eight
    Nothing like Eights Week in Oxford had ever happened to Lucy before. Suddenly grown up, she floated round the city on a cloud of delight. It was not merely her own self-confidence which told her that she had emerged at last from the schoolroom, but the manner in which everyone treated her. True, she was still required to be accompanied everywhere by Miss Jarrold, but that was only because she had no mother. Miss Jarrold herself instinctively recognized a difference in her role, transforming herself from a governess into a companion during the course of the journey from Castlemere.
    Magdalen was to hold its ball on the Thursday of Eights Week, and Lucy had not allowed Archie to forget his promise to invite her. Her grandfather, who proposed to go with her to Oxford, had in good time given her a generous present of money to be spent on new clothes, telling her gruffly that she was to be a credit to her brother and hang the expense. So on this calm, warm June night of the ball she had put up her golden hair and worn her golden dress and had been the prettiest girl at the dance. All her partners had told her so – and even if they had not, Lucy, without being vain, knew it to be true. Archie had made sure in advance that his friends would fill her programme, but there was no need for his solicitude; from the moment of her first appearance she had been surrounded by young men begging for a dance.
    The next morning, even before she was awake, flowers began to arrive at the hotel, with messages begging her tovisit one or other of her partners for morning coffee, luncheon, afternoon tea, a walk, dinner – anything for which she could spare the time.
    â€˜Turn ’em all down,’ growled the marquess. ‘Archie’s got everything fixed.’
    Lucy accepted his instructions, secretly glad that her new-found social confidence was not to be tested by private conversation. It was almost excitement enough to be staying in an hotel for the first time in her life. And in any case she had already discovered that she would meet most of her new swains again down by the river. For while the ball had provided the high point of Lucy’s week, Archie’s enthusiasm was concentrated on the rowing which provided the
raison d’être
of the whole week’s social activity.
    He had taken pains to explain the system to his sister, so that she should not embarrass him by asking the wrong questions out of ignorance. The river, he told her, was not wide enough for the boats manned by the various colleges to race side by side. So instead they were split up into Divisions, racing at intervals, and within each Division the starting point of each boat was a fixed distance behind the one in front. If it succeeded in overtaking before the finishing line was reached, then the next day it would start the race in the higher position.
    â€˜It’s called bumping,’ he told her. ‘But of course there’s no need actually to bump. Just to catch up.’
    â€˜Has Magdalen bumped?’ asked Lucy. It was a tactful question.
    â€˜Every day so far this week. If we can keep it up, we shall go Head of the River on Saturday. You’ll come and watch, of course. The college has a barge. Not what you’d think of as a barge. A kind of