Before their constraint became uncomfortable, they were swooped on by Bella, who threw herself on the chair next to Cat and exclaimed, ‘There you are. At last. I’ve been scouring the dance floor for you for ages. You totally missed the Dashing White Sergeant, and I was buzzing for you to make up a threesome with me and Jamie.’

Cat’s face fell under her friend’s attack. ‘I’m sorry. I looked, but I couldn’t even see you.’

James arrived just in time to take a gentle punch in the arm from Bella. ‘I told your hopeless brother to go and look for you but he wouldn’t leave my side. Honestly, Cat, men are so lazy.’

‘It wouldn’t have done any good if I’d found Cat only to mislay you,’ James said in his defence.

Bella rolled her eyes. ‘Hopeless.’

Cat leaned back in her seat so she could include Ellie in the conversation. But her new friend was already on her feet. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I promised my father I’d meet him in the supper room. It was lovely to meet you.’ And she bowed with curious formality before backing away and making for the exit.

‘Who on earth was that?’ Bella asked. ‘She acts like she’s in Pride and Prejudice.’

‘That’s Henry Tilney’s sister, Ellie.’ Cat stared after the disappearing figure. There was something about Ellie, something out of time and out of style. Like there would be if you were a two-hundred-year-old vampire, she thought with a mixture of dread and delight.

‘Is he here?’ Bella looked around eagerly. ‘Is he half as good looking as she is? Where is the all-conquering brother? Point him out to me, I’m totally dying to see him.’

‘What are you both on about?’ James asked.

‘Honestly, you men talk about women gossiping, but you’re just as bad. Actually, no, you’re worse. You’re like little old women, you put your heads together and gossip, gossip, gossip about cars and women and sport. Well, Jamie, this is our little secret and we’re not sharing.’ Bella prodded him in the chest to drive home her point.

James laughed. ‘You’re just trying to hide the fact that you’ve got nothing important to say.’

‘Cheeky boy,’ Bella complained. ‘Honestly, Cat, you’ve done an atrocious job of bringing up Jamie. He has no idea at all of how to treat a woman. You’d better stop eavesdropping, Master Jamie, or you might hear something you don’t want to.’

The banter continued between Jamie and Bella, freeing Cat from any responsibility to contribute. She was grateful that the subject of Henry had been sidetracked, though there was a tiny part of her that was disappointed by Bella’s swift loss of interest in a subject that was so dear to Cat’s heart. She might not want to discuss him, but she wanted to have it confirmed that he was worthy of discussion.

When the band struck up again, James was immediately on his feet, picking up Bella’s hand as he rose. ‘Come on, Bella, it’s a St Bernard’s Waltz. You like to waltz.’

Cat wondered how he could make so confident an assertion, considering how little he knew Bella. And how brief she assumed his own acquaintance with Scottish country dancing to be. However, her friend responded, ‘I don’t like to waltz, I love it. So dreamy. But my evil sisters will tease us if we dance together all night, Jamie.’

‘You’re confusing me with someone who gives a toss. They’re just jealous. I want to waltz with a beautiful woman, but I’ll make do with you, Bella.’ His smile was impish, his words free of sting.

‘You are so bad, Jamie. Will you be OK, Cat? I don’t know where my hopeless brother has got to ...’ She looked around, distracted. ‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll be back in a minute.’ Without further pretence at reluctance, she followed James on to the dance floor and let him draw her close as the dance permitted.

Cat felt her shoulders slump in spite of her determination to remain straight-backed and cheerful in the face of her disappointment. Martha Thorpe leaned across and patted her arm. ‘He’ll be back soon, then you’ll be happy again. He’ll have you tripping the light fantastic again. What an adorable couple you make.’

It took her a moment to realise Martha was speaking of her son. ‘I’m fine as I am, thank you,’ she said.

‘Of course you are,’ Martha said condescendingly. ‘But you must feel deflated after enjoying John’s high spirits on the dance floor.’

Susie interrupted, saving Cat from having to find an anodyne response. ‘Did you see Henry?’

‘No, where is he?’

Susie looked around, puzzled. ‘He was with us just now, when you were talking to Bella and James. He said he was tired of lounging about and he wanted to dance. I thought he was coming over to ask you.’

Dismayed, Cat cast an eye over the dancers as they turned and glided past her. And there she saw Henry, smiling down at a frankly dumpy little woman whose dress didn’t suit her in the slightest.

Susie caught sight of him at the same moment. ‘Oh. He’s dancing with someone else.’ After a short silence, she added, ‘He really is a lovely young man.’

‘You’re so right,’ Martha chipped in complacently. ‘I shouldn’t say it about my own son, but there is not a more charming young man in the city, never mind in this room.’

Cat and Susie exchanged a look, both bursting to giggle at Martha’s misapprehension. But that was Cat’s last moment of levity for the evening. Before the dance was over, John Thorpe returned and dropped like a stone into the chair next to her. ‘Shocking hands I’ve just had to endure through there. I thought I might as well come back here and take you for another turn round the floor.’

‘That’s very kind of you. But I’ve danced enough for one evening. And my feet hurt from when you stood on them before.’

He looked dumbfounded. ‘I stood on your feet? I think it’s more like you misplaced your feet and put them where mine needed to be. Come on, let’s have another crack at it and see if you can’t manage it better this time.’

‘Honestly, I’m too tired.’

He gave a heavy, put-upon sigh. ‘OK, then let’s go walkabout and see who we can rip the piss out of.’

‘Really, I’m happy where I am. On you go, though. Don’t let me spoil your fun.’

He looked as if he was about to make another attempt, but just then his sister Jess came by and he snagged her arm. ‘Jess, let’s go and see who we can wind up. Come on, we’ll show them how to have a good time.’

For the rest of the evening, Cat skulked round the fringes of the fun. She moved between the ballroom and the supper room, trying to look purposeful. She even took a couple of selfies to post on her Facebook page so she could pretend to her sisters that she was having the time of her life.

Later, as the balmy night air filled her bedroom, she studied the photos more closely, the better to decide which to post. In the background of one, to her surprise and consternation, was the unmistakable figure of Henry Tilney, his dark inscrutable eyes fixed unswervingly on her.

9


Cat’s reaction to the photograph was not, as might be supposed, unmitigated pleasure. Instead, she was filled with an overwhelming desire to eat chocolate. Mr Allen came home towards midnight to find her working her way through the remains of a chocolate fudge cake from the fridge. ‘The raging munchies,’ he said, eyebrows raised, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. ‘Tell me you’ve not been smoking dope, Cat.’

Shocked that he would even think such a thing, Cat exclaimed, ‘Even if I did take drugs, I would never abuse your hospitality like that.’

Seeing that he had genuinely upset her, Mr Allen sat down at the table and helped himself to a broken chunk of fudge icing. ‘Relax, Cat. I was only teasing. But if you ever did need a non-judgemental place to smoke a joint, you could do a lot worse than to come round to our house.’

‘Are you saying you and Susie do drugs?’ This was the final disappointment of what had been a profoundly anti-climactic evening. It was not that Cat was a prig; simply that home schooling meant she had never been offered illicit drugs nor was she aware of anyone in her immediate circle who indulged. What she knew of drug-taking she had learned from books and films and it had awakened no desire in her to partake.

Mr Allen chuckled. ‘Not any more. But we did enjoy our misspent youths. It’s OK, Cat, I didn’t really think you’d been getting stoned, it’s just that I’ve never seen you working your way through great slabs of cake at any time of day, never mind last thing at night. And one of the side effects of dope is that it makes you want to stuff yourself with sweet things.’

Unwilling to share the reason for her comfort eating, Cat wrapped up the last of the cake and replaced it in the fridge. ‘I just didn’t get much to eat at the dance,’ she said. ‘Good night.’

Cat went to bed determined to lie awake and wallow in her misery. Instead, she was asleep in minutes and when she woke nine hours later, her despair had evaporated, replaced by a buoyant optimism that spawned fresh hopes and fresh schemes.

Phase one of her plan was to develop her new acquaintance with Ellie Tilney. She told herself that it was for the girl’s own sake, but in her secret heart she knew she sought to reach the brother through the sister. She had gleaned from their conversation that Ellie had tickets for three events at the Pleasance that day. Cat checked the Fringe programme and discovered that the first of these was due to take place at noon. She determined to make her way over there after eleven, so she could appear to be a fellow audience member when Ellie arrived.

To pass the time, she curled up in an armchair with the Hebridean Harpies. Being part of a large family had allowed Cat to develop the habit of selective deafness, so she was more or less immune to the random remarks and exclamations of Susie, who, having so little to occupy her mind, was determined to share whatever trifle happened to cross it. Whether it was an intriguing item in her Twitter feed or a stain on her dress, a traffic jam in the street below or a particular pigeon on a ledge across the street, Susie had to pass comment, regardless of the reactions of Cat or Mr Allen.