After the Armistice Ball

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Lustre. That was what had been missing and was suddenly back. The Esslemonts’ Armistice Ball was lustrous in a way feared to have disappeared for ever; and for once, as Daisy Esslemont observed, the emphasis was not on lust. Husbands were recently demobbed and there was none of the usual marital ennui, so in spite of the glitter a strange wholesomeness prevailed.

The ladies dazzled. Young and old, their hair shone with setting lotion or twinkled with ornaments; lips glowed red if maquillage had been ventured upon, cheeks glowed pink if not; frocks sparkled or gleamed with the bristle of sequins or the stately drape of satin. The ladies, though, were not uncontested. Men, usually no more than a backdrop to their wives, were resplendent that night since no man without a dress uniform in which to strut around would have dared show his face. The epaulettes and medals from the Boer campaign and the one or two surviving costumes from the Crimea lent a faint air of light opera along with their whiff of camphor and outdid, somewhat impertinently the young men felt, the lesser peacockery of more recent heroes.

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