Debutantes (29 page)

‘Dance with me, Justin,’ she said casually and took his hand.

He moved obediently after her and even smiled at her once they reached the dance floor. He opened his mouth – probably to talk about Violet, but Daisy was too quick for him.

‘I’m a woman of means now, Justin,’ she said as he swung her around.

That got his interest, she thought, but then he laughed.

‘Got a rise in your pocket money?’ he said teasingly.

‘No,’ she said smugly. ‘I got paid for a job well done – just like you would get paid for defending a client in court.’

He was still smiling but he looked puzzled.

‘Done a few successful burglaries, have you? Got yourself hired as an organizer of Debs’ Events by Buckingham Palace?’

‘No,’ she said proudly. ‘It’s to do with my chosen profession: I sold a film that I made.’

He nodded infuriatingly. ‘Sir Guy, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Wish I had a rich godfather.’

‘It wasn’t a present,’ said Daisy. ‘He showed the altered film to his team and asked them how much he should pay for it. He told them to forget that I had made it. Some of them said thirty-five pounds and some forty-five, but most said forty so he gave me forty pounds. What do you think of that?’

It had been a wonderful moment. She had still been hesitant about taking it, but Sir Guy told her that he could get double that by the time he sold it to some cinemas.

‘It’s just the sort of thing that they are looking for in a “short”,’ he said. ‘I’ll sell that to perhaps five hundred cinemas – remember there are more than twenty million people visiting cinemas these days, so you can see why there’s money in producing films.’

Daisy looked at Justin to see the effect on him of her words.

‘Justin, did you hear me?’ she asked impatiently.

He didn’t answer. His eyes had gone to Violet again. The music was slowing and then stopped. Everyone clapped politely, Basil with exaggerated gentility, bringing his hands gently and slowly towards each other, but not allowing them to touch. He and Poppy went towards the champagne and the other three members of the jazz band joined them with evident relief. Most girls returned to their mothers or chaperones, who were sitting on small gilt chairs – perhaps the same chairs that had been hired for the ball at the Duchess’s party – but Violet still kept a white-gloved hand tucked into David’s arm.

Daisy glanced at Justin and saw the look of gloom intensified on his strong-featured face. He jutted out his chin and looked as if he were about to accost the two of them. It’s not fair, thought Daisy. He can’t ask her to marry him as he is a younger son with neither money nor a job, so he should really just leave her alone. If it had been up to her, she would have chosen Justin in preference to that slack-jawed David with his weak chin and his blonde hair slicked back from his narrow forehead, but she wasn’t Violet. Violet was a romantic – she wanted to be a princess, not the wife of a younger son, or even of a busy barrister.

Annoyed with herself for mentioning her film, Daisy went across to the table, picked up two glasses of champagne and walked up to a fair-haired young man standing with what looked like his mother and sister. She gave him a bright smile and said with a fashionable drawl as she handed over the glass, ‘Fizz! Don’t you just love it!’

And then she smiled flirtatiously at him.

She was just about to ask him to dance – why not? she asked herself – when there was sharp ring at the hall door and one of the footmen beckoned to the butler. A moment later Bateman opened the door with a flourish.

And he was followed by one of the most devastatingly handsome men that Daisy had ever seen. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, immensely tall with very broad shoulders – he had the build of an athlete and he was dressed in a splendid uniform of red and gold. Bateman marched straight up to Elaine and the crowd parted to allow the newcomer to follow him.

‘His Excellency, Mr John Nelborough,’ announced the butler, and Elaine, to Daisy’s amazement, blushed like a sixteen-year-old, and came forward with both hands stretched out.

‘Jack,’ Elaine said. ‘How on earth did you manage to get here on time?’

‘Ship docked half an hour ago, got togged up on board, sent my man with the luggage to The Ritz and came straight on here.’ The mysterious stranger lifted both of Elaine’s hands to his lips in a manner which Daisy thought to be rather dashing.

‘Let’s dance,’ he said, and whispered in her ear. And Elaine, still blushing, went across to the orchestra and said something. The conductor lifted his baton and began to play ‘Danube Waves’ and the newcomer lifted his voice and began to sing almost as though he and Elaine were the only ones in the room:

‘
Let this be the anthem of our future years,

A few little smiles and a few little tears
.’

And Elaine gazed up at him as if he were the answer to all her dreams.

‘Excuse me,’ said Daisy to the blond boy and made her way around the edge of the dancers until she reached the butler, who was watching Elaine and the mysterious stranger with an indulgent look in his eyes.

‘Who’s he, Bateman?’ asked Daisy, noting with interest how Elaine almost lay back in the muscular arms of the new arrival.

‘High Commissioner of the Indian Police, my lady,’ said Bateman. He had a look of satisfaction on his elderly face and nodded gravely when Daisy said, ‘He looks rather dashing.’

‘Good voice, nice bass-baritone.’ Poppy had appeared at her elbow with the jazz band boys in tow. They stared critically across at His Excellency, who was laughing as he sang: ‘
Tell me this is true romance.
’

‘From India,’ said Daisy with emphasis, but Poppy wasn’t interested in that.

‘Wonder how he would sound with a good jazz-band backing,’ said Edwin.

‘Like to hear him sing “Everybody Loves My Baby” with a voice like that,’ said Baz. He hummed a few lines of the jazz tune in his half-broken adolescent voice.

‘Any possibility of getting some decent music, Daise?’ asked Simon.

‘Wait until it’s Poppy’s coming-out dance,’ said Daisy with a grin. ‘Tonight is Violet’s special night.’ And Elaine’s, she added silently to herself as she watched her aunt, looking as young as Violet, whirling around the room in the arms of her dashing suitor. ‘Why are you standing around here? Ask Rose to dance,’ she ordered Simon, and he saluted and went off.

No one asked Daisy for that dance, but she sipped her champagne and felt quite happy. She was interested in what was going on. Violet had at last given Justin a dance and he was holding her very close and murmuring in her ear. Daisy suddenly felt rather sorry for her. She thought of Poppy’s revelation that Baz’s grandfather had died and he had been left a London mews house. Did Justin have any wealthy relatives who would leave him a legacy – not just a house, but an income? Of course, sooner or later he would get a job as a lawyer, but she guessed that his family would put pressure on him to marry money. There were supposed to be lots of rich American girls in London whose wealthy fathers were on the lookout for Englishmen of good family to marry their daughters.

And then the waltz finished. Elaine’s eyes had gone to Daisy. She said something to her escort, standing prettily on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. He nodded and he too looked across at Daisy. He tucked Elaine’s arm under his and strolled across the floor, smiling at her. He would be in his mid-thirties, she thought. He had an air of assurance and of authority that made him very attractive.

‘Jack, may I introduce Daisy, my niece. Daisy, this is a friend from India, Mr Nelborough.’

‘So you’re one of the twins,’ said Mr Nelborough casually as he moved Daisy around the dance floor in an expert manner. ‘And that’s the other twin, the girl with the magnificent hair, is that right? You’re quite unalike, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, we are,’ said Daisy. ‘But after all, we are not identical twins so there’s no reason why we should be any more alike than sisters: Elaine and my mother Mary were completely unalike – Mother was very like Poppy.’ She eyed him sharply, wondering why Elaine, who had been so well schooled in etiquette by her Aunt Lizzie, had asked him to dance with Daisy rather than with the eldest of the family, Violet.

‘Why did you come over to England?’ she asked casually. He was a wonderful dancer, she thought. It was quite an exciting experience to be whirled around by him.

‘Well, I had a bit of leave coming and a friend of mine – an equerry at Buckingham Palace – got me a pair of tickets for the royal wedding so I thought of Elaine.’ He spoke her name lovingly and tenderly and his eyes wandered in her direction before they looked back again at Daisy. ‘What was I saying?’ he enquired.

‘The royal wedding,’ prompted Daisy. Everyone in London was agog at the prospect of the ceremony at Westminster Abbey between Prince Albert and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. Rose was already an authority on anything to do with it.

‘Oh yes, of course. Well, I thought Elaine would love it – she’s very romantic. So I hopped on a ship and came over to have a little holiday. I thought she might like an escort around London, that sort of thing, you know.’

‘I’m sure she’d love that,’ Daisy said sincerely.

‘It’s a lovely surprise to see her four nieces – like sisters to her. I never expected to meet you all.’ He smiled down at her. He really was incredibly handsome and charming, she thought.

‘You can’t believe what a crush there was. We were all queuing up in this long corridor, about a hundred debutantes and their presenters with them – and it was just so hot and I kept thinking that I could smell these ostrich feathers that we were all wearing and I thought that I would faint. And then the girl ahead of me made a mess of her curtsy. She wobbled terribly when she tried to stand up and she almost overbalanced. And I was shaking with nerves when my turn came.’

‘But you didn’t overbalance – I bet you were the best of them all,’ said Daisy. Violet would have risen to the occasion, she knew – even this morning she was still floating on a wave of joy and excitement.

‘Was Prince George there?’ asked Rose.

‘No, just ladies-in-waiting – that sort of thing.’ Judging by Rose’s annoyed face, Violet was not making a good story out of it – not enough to satisfy her anyway. Rose was already well into a novel called
The Girl Who Married the Future King
.

‘What were you all saying to each other?’ she urged, pencil at the ready.

‘Nothing really,’ said Violet vaguely. ‘We were too nervous. It was just so exciting.’

‘Start from the beginning and tell it properly,’ said Rose firmly.

Violet sighed. ‘Well, we went in that hired Daimler. Wish we had gone with Morgan – he probably would have found a short cut. It took us about an hour to go down The Mall, everything was queuing from start to finish – we even queued at the railings outside Buckingham Palace. At last we were inside, and there we were in a brightly lit crowded corridor, everyone had bare shoulders because we had to leave our wraps behind, and there was a funny smell from all these ancient ostrich feathers, and we all went up the grand staircase, and past those Carrara marble statues.

‘Was the balustrade made from gold?’ asked Rose, scribbling frantically.

‘No, bronze, I think,’ said Violet vaguely. And then she took pity on her youngest sister and told her all about the red carpet and the soldiers, members of His Majesty’s Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms with their plumed helmets and heavy gold epaulettes. ‘And they had these pointy things in their hands,’ she finished.

‘Medieval halberds, held ready to root out the traitors in the crowd,’ put in Rose, turning to a new page.

‘I had to pinch myself when we got to the antechamber, the ball supper room,’ admitted Violet. ‘I kept saying to myself, “In another minute I will be presented.” But of course we sat there for hours, or it seemed like it.’

‘What were you sitting on?’ asked Rose eagerly.

‘These gilt chairs – like the ones that are hired for dances,’ said Violet. ‘We sat in rows on stiff gilt chairs for what seemed hours.’

‘And then?’

‘And then Marjorie and I were discussing her house party and she was telling me all about who was going to be invited and how
Tatler
were sending down a reporter as well as a photographer . . .’