Chapter Text
Magdalene’s lungs burnt, it was impossible to take enough air in under the strain. Her feet clattered against marble and she had reached the point where she was using the momentum of her body to propel herself forward, if she stopped she’d fall over.
“Don’t leave me behind!” she yelled down the corridor.
No one answered her.
Stumbling around the corner she saw the rest of them up ahead of her. Sodding bastards.
“…to have several speakers here today. We welcome them all.”
Panting, Magdalene walked over to the group and sat down with them all, trying to look refined and happy to be there. There was a smattering of applause from the two-hundred-or-so people in front of them, Rick and Evy prominent in the crowd.
Magdalene was here to give a speech on the trust set up by the O’Connells to fund historical research by postgraduates in London Universities. King’s College London had invited several of the charities it worked with to speak, at a self-serving fest of ego-boosting. The Dean had hoped that Evy or Rick would speak, but Evy had suggested that Magdalene was a better choice as it was her idea in the first place.
It had actually been a joke. She said if she was never going to university, they might as well use the money to pay for somebody else to go. Evy took her seriously.
So now she was being asked to make a lot of rich people feel very happy about agreeing with her. She wasn’t used to people agreeing with her. It meant a lot of simpering and gratitude.
“Our first speaker of the evening,” said the portly host, “is Miss Carnahan from the O’Connell-Bembridge Trust.”
There was a second, less enthusiastic applause, as Magdalene stood at the lectern and brushed back a lock of hair that had stuck to her forehead with sweat. She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her clutch bag, smoothing it out, focusing desperately on the letters. Evy wrote her speech up on the typewriter but it looked just as squiggly as Magdalene’s terrible handwriting. Probably nerves.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” she began, “thank you all for coming here today, it – it is.”
Her lip trembled and she cowered under the eyes of everyone in the room. She noticed a glass of water in the little recess of the lectern and took a sip. What would Evy say?
“Apologies, I’m just taken aback by this lovely banquet hall we’re in, such an impeccable example of ancient history.”
The audience laughed, there were even a few chuckles from the row of men sat behind her. Magdalene smiled and caught sight of Evy who covertly gave her a thumbs up.
“It is a pleasure to have been invited by Dean Jones-Andrews,” Magdalene continued, “and I am delighted to speak to you all about the work our trust has achieved so far…”
* * *
If one thing was worse than a speech, it was the mingling that came after. Magdalene itched all over with the anxiety of socialising and remembering manners and polite conversations, and how to laugh delicately, and every time someone moved their china plates squeaked under the pressure of cutlery – was she using her fish knife properly? – or crystal flutes that clinked together and fizzed, soft footfalls of staff who snuck up behind her and made her jump, the bristle of a moustache as the man next to her ate. It was all irritating and dull and posh.
Her hair had to be curled for the evening, pinned up around her ears, and it was pulling at her scalp. The dress she was in was floral, with a crimped waist. It had ruffled and creased when she was running and now puckered underneath her arms and she couldn’t get the fabric to go back down.
She got up from the table in a hurry, trailing crumbs from her napkin, which everyone politely pretended not to see.
The floor was wooden, rubbed smooth by the sheer number of heels that had walked on it, echoing with every step Magdalene took. There was a small smoking room to the back, for men only, but no one would mind her loitering in the alcove next to the doorway.
In fact, people minded. It had not occurred to Magdalene that those around her thought it beneath them to comment and the staff did not want to cause a fuss by upsetting a Carnahan. In her mind she was still as invisible as she was when she was eighteen. She was unbothered as much as she was then, but now it was actually because she stuck out like a Yorkshire pudding in a patisserie.
“High society not worth your time?”
Coming out of the smoking room was a tall gentleman in a blue suit, fine hair moussed back and a cigar between his lips.
“This is not high society. If it were, I’d feel like a bug under a microscope,” Magdalene replied without looking at him, then realised what she had said.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean – it was just, I just.”
“It’s okay,” he laughed, “I understand you didn’t mean it.”
Magdalene bit her lip. “It’s not that you, or anyone here isn’t posh, but I’ve met posher and they’re much more awful than any of you and they manage to make you feel like you’ve just been rolled out of a ditch.”
“Ah,” the smile was still on his face. “I best not try and succeed at anything then, in case I get too posh and start being rude to complete strangers.”
“Oh my God I’m so sorry.”
“I’m teasing you,” he said.
He leaned his back against the wall next to her, side by side in the little alcove, pulling out a silver case and opening it.
“Cigar?” he offered.
“No thank you, I don’t smoke.”
“I would have thought someone would hang around a smoking lounge in order to smoke.”
“It was quieter here than in there.” Magdalene nodded over to the hall where waiters were taking plates away and people were standing around in huddles of conversation.
“Not the social butterfly you made out to be when giving your speech then?”
“Around the right sort of people I am,” She kicked her skirt from under her heel and clasped her hands behind her back.
“And who are the right sort of people for a Carnahan to associate with? Royalty or ruffians?”
Magdalene gave a wry smile and waited for a few men to go past as they entered the smoking lounge before she replied.
“Mummies.”
The man held a finger in the air, “Ah! I should have guessed! You are a true explorer. But I want an honest answer to my question, when the adventure is over, who does Magdalene Carnahan talk to?”
“Are you trying to wheedle your way into my social circle? I don’t even know your name.”
His grin grew mischievous. “If I gave you my name, I would have to use my manners. Doesn’t politeness make you feel like a bug under a microscope?”
“Wise guys,” Magdalene smiled, “that’s my sort of company. A pity you’re not funny and good looking too.”
“Oh!” He clutched his chest mockingly. “The lady wounds me!”
They both laughed and Magdalene asked if she could take a drag off of the thin cigar he was smoking.
“I thought you didn’t smoke? The lady is full of contradictions.”
“I said I don’t smoke. Never said I haven’t smoked at all.”
Magdalene blew twin clouds through her nostrils and watched the smoke waft through the air, picking up the currents of dust and swirling around in the shafts of light from the window panes.
“You remind me of someone,” she said. “A man I met in Chicago who I stayed with for a while. Never knew when to stop talking but so kind. I owe him a lot.”
“Who is he? He sounds very special for such an esteemed woman to owe him a debt.”
“He was a no one, I only stayed with him a month before I moved on.”
The man raised his eyebrows and became serious, “A shame, you speak highly of him. You never kept in touch?”
Magdalene laughed. “No. I didn’t. He died in an armed robbery, I left after his funeral.”
“How tragic.”
“Oh, not for him. He was the robber.”
He smiled broadly, as if to laugh at the joke, but faltered when Magdalene didn’t do the same.
“Not all of us high society lot started out that way,” she said, and handed his cigar back and walked back into the banquet hall.