Debutantes (5 page)

When that was done she switched on the light again and breathed a deep sigh of relief. From now on things were easier.

Daisy carried on working quickly and methodically, adding chemicals, shaking the bath until the gong sounded for breakfast.

‘Just right,’ she thought.

‘How’s it going?’ Morgan was coming out of the kitchen, wiping the back of his mouth with his hand.

Daisy showed him crossed fingers and he nodded understandingly.

‘Shall we tell them about my idea?’ Poppy was waiting outside the dining-room door for her twin.

‘Let’s get the photograph done first,’ said Daisy. ‘Come and help me choose the three best prints after breakfast, then we’ll show them to the others.’

It was a good job Great-Aunt Lizzie had decided that the three older girls were now too old for formal lessons. As far as Daisy was concerned there did not seem to be enough hours in the day for all the things that she wanted to do and she knew that Poppy felt the same.

But what about Violet? Something had to be done about her! She seemed to spend the days reading or playing endless games of Patience with a pack of cards. Daisy decided that Poppy’s idea was good. At least Violet would be occupied in making party dresses for them all. She remembered when they were young she and Poppy used to take elaborate dresses from the trunk labelled ‘Lady Derrington’ in the attic and trail around pretending to be at a ball for grand young ladies. Surely some of them would do for outfits for Violet’s birthday dance.

‘This one, definitely, this one and . . . and that one.’ Poppy held the negatives to the light and, as usual, was decisive.

‘I thought these three were the best as well.’ Daisy carefully cut them from the spool of film and poured a chemical into the bath to remove all traces of the fixer. ‘I just want to avoid white stains on the negatives,’ she muttered, praying that all would go well.

‘Have you talked to Morgan about the dance idea yet?’ she asked as she held the negatives under the running water for a final wash.

‘Haven’t seen him,’ replied Poppy.

‘Well, you might as well find him now and see what he thinks. This will take a good five minutes and then I’ll have to put them in the enlarger and print them.’

It was mid-morning before the three photographs were ready. Michael Derrington was still out on his morning ride around the farms of the estate, Violet was crouched over the wood-burning stove in the hall, reading poetry, and Rose and Great-Aunt Lizzie were struggling with fractions in the schoolroom on the top floor – though why the unfortunate Maud had to toil three storeys up with her bucket of coal when the house was full of unused rooms Daisy never could understand. However, her mother’s aunt had a great sense of what was fitting and fractions belonged to the schoolroom.

Daisy borrowed an old dark blue rug from the linen cupboard and went into the library. Maud was sitting on the floor beside the light from the crackling logs in the fireplace. She was chuckling to herself over some handwritten pages torn from an exercise book, but jumped to her feet when Daisy came in and hastily crammed the pages into her apron pocket. Daisy recognized Rose’s large scrawl.

‘I beg your pardon, my lady; just finishing, my lady.’ Hastily she picked up a small log and put it on top of the others.

‘It’s nice of you to help Rose with her mathematics, Maud,’ said Daisy, ‘and encourage her with the stories she writes.’ Her eye was on Maud’s apron pocket as she spoke, but Maud just muttered something and was out of the room before Daisy could say any more. Rose was clattering down the stairs now, jumping the odd one – no doubt Great-Aunt Lizzie was still on one of the upper floors.

‘Have you read it?’ Daisy could hear Rose’s eager voice, but she couldn’t make out Maud’s reply. She hurried over to the door.

‘Could I read it, too, Rosie?’ she asked cheerfully, holding out her hand to Maud. If the story was what she guessed, the sooner it was burned or at least securely hidden from either the housekeeper or Great-Aunt Lizzie herself, the better. Both would be shocked to the core and Rose would be in deep trouble.

‘
Juvenilia by Child Genius Collected by Elder Sister.
Has Another Jane Austen Been Uncovered?
’ said Rose happily as Maud handed the sheets of paper to Daisy.

‘Come and help me,’ said Daisy, smiling reassuringly at Maud, but the scullery maid just scuttled away through the door that led to the basement.

‘You’re embarrassing that poor girl,’ said Daisy reprovingly, suppressing the thought that she sounded like Great-Aunt Lizzie.

‘You’re the one who is embarrassing her,’ pointed out Rose, and Daisy laughed. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said. ‘Now spread that rug over the table for me.’

The dark blue background was just right, she thought, but she did not arrange the photographs on it until after she had sent Rose out to summon the rest of the family.

And then she stood back and waited for their reactions.

The photographs were nearly all the same, but nevertheless one stood out from the rest, and that was the one that Daisy had taken after Justin arrived. Violet had been reading the lines of poetry about Sir Lancelot and his ‘coal-black’ curls, had looked over Daisy’s shoulder, and had seen the dark-haired young man as if he were a figure from the poem.

One by one her father, Poppy, Rose and Violet picked out this photograph and then everyone looked at Great-Aunt Lizzie.

‘Not that one,’ she said slowly. Elderly though she was her voice, as always, was clipped and assured. ‘Not that one,’ she repeated. ‘We must remember that the Duchess of Denton has her own daughter to bring out.’ She paused for a moment, visibly weighing up whether more need be said or not and then coming to a decision.

‘This one, dear,’ she said firmly and picked up the first photograph. ‘The other one, that you all like, should be hung in the gallery.’

‘That’s not the best one – you’re right about that,’ said Poppy as a disappointed Daisy wrapped Great-Aunt Lizzie’s choice in tissue paper and placed it in a cardboard box and Violet penned a little note to her godmother.

‘I don’t care as long as she invites me to London,’ said Violet. She folded the piece of stiff, embossed writing paper and placed it on top of the portrait. ‘I just want to be presented and have some fun like other girls. And marry someone rich,’ she added. ‘I don’t think that I could bear to be poor again. I’m just so sick of it. And if you and Daisy help me, then I’ll find husbands for the two of you when you come out in 1925. I promise,’ she added.

‘And me?’ asked Rose.

‘And you,’ Violet assured her. ‘But I have to get away from this place or I’ll go mad. I just can’t stand it – nothing new, everyone talking about being poor, and it’s so cold and damp.’

‘That’s because you weren’t born to it,’ said Daisy wisely. ‘You can remember times when Father and Mother were rich and there were fires in every room. Poppy and I can’t really remember those times – neither can Rose.’

‘Ah, but I have an imagination,’ said Rose. ‘I can feel in my bones what it must have been like. I think that Violet should make the ultimate sacrifice for her sisters. She must marry money. Otherwise I may fall into a decline and fade away.’

‘I would, like a shot,’ said Violet broodingly. ‘The only trouble is that so far I don’t think I’ve met anyone with money. When I asked Great-Aunt Lizzie for money to post this parcel, she went to her desk and handed out stamps one by one. Look at them – rows and rows of penny stamps from the time of Queen Victoria. I’d be embarrassed to take this to the post office. I’ll ask Morgan to take it for me.’

‘Tell him not to pay any extra for it himself though, if that’s not enough,’ said Daisy.

‘Let’s choose you a rich husband,’ said Rose. ‘It’s a shame that Great-Aunt Lizzie has given up having magazines delivered. Still I’ve cut lots of society pictures out from
The Lady
. Wait! I’ll get my scrapbook.’

By the time the penny stamps were all glued on to the parcel, Rose was back with her cuttings scrapbook.

‘What about the Earl of Charleforth?’ she asked.

‘He’s bald,’ said Violet, glaring at the picture in Rose’s scrapbook.

‘He’s probably even balder now,’ said Rose cheerfully. ‘That picture must have been taken about five years ago. He’s still in uniform. He’s rich though. It talks about him going back to care for his extensive estates. I found that newspaper on a shelf in the linen cupboard.’

‘Father’s got extensive estates, but he’s poor,’ pointed out Daisy.

‘That’s because of dastardly Denis; the ’orrible heir,’ said Poppy knowledgeably. The shortcomings of the unpleasant heir to the Derrington estate were a popular topic during their father’s more garrulous moods. ‘He won’t allow Father to sell the woodland and so all of the trees are falling down in storms and we’re as poor as church mice. The Penningtons have sold another farm – Morgan told me that.’

‘If only you were a boy,’ said Violet irritably to Rose. ‘Then you would be the heir. Everybody was sure you were going to be a boy before you were born. I remember Nanny talking to us about a ‘little brother’. If you were the heir you could agree to Father selling the trees and a couple of farms and then I could have a season in London like all the other girls.’

‘Look, here’s the man for you,’ said Rose, ignoring Violet’s constantly repeated lament about the family estate going to a distant cousin who was an unpleasant individual, determined not to help their father in his money troubles. ‘Go on, look! You can’t say
he’s
bald.’

Violet surveyed the picture framed by Rose’s cupped hand. A slight smile tugged at the petulant corners of her lovely mouth. ‘I must say that he is rather good-looking. Looks a bit like that Rudolph Valentino in
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
. Who is he? I’m sure I’ve seen him before.’

‘Prince George,’ said Rose, removing her hand. ‘Just the perfect age for you – three years older. He was born on the twentieth of December, 1902.’ Rose was a great authority on the royal family and knew all their birthdays, the cars they drove, the house parties they attended, the sports that they were good at and even their second, third, fourth and fifth names.

‘I’m sure that King George would love me to marry his son,’ said Violet glumly. ‘He would regard it as a very good match – especially if I turned up in darned breeches and a jumper that has been washed ten times too often.’

‘Well, Prince George is his fourth son so he’s probably not too fussy,’ said Rose wisely. ‘After all, he has only managed to get one of them engaged so far. And they go to every party in London. There are pages and pages of the royal princes in all the copies of
The London Illustrated News
.’

Violet stared moodily at the parcel with its rows of penny stamps. Suddenly she picked it up and kissed it. ‘If only the Duchess will invite me to one of those parties,’ she said. ‘I promise you that I will do my best. I’ll marry someone rich and then I’ll present you all in court and you’ll make splendid marriages too. I swear I’ll do that!’

And then she put it down and burst into tears. ‘It’s all so silly,’ she said tragically. ‘It’s like Cinderella. I’m too old for fairy stories. Nothing is going to happen. We’re going to go on living in this dreary place year after year, having no fun, being poor, poor, poor.’

Daisy looked at Poppy and found her twin’s amber eyes fixed on hers. One eyebrow was raised. As usual the same thought had come to both at the same moment.

‘Go on, you tell her,’ said Daisy. ‘It was your idea.’

‘Well, we were thinking of having a surprise birthday party for you next week,’ said Poppy.

‘They’re just telling you a week early so that you’ll forget and then it really will be a surprise,’ explained Rose. ‘Poor things! Don’t laugh at them – they haven’t got their younger sister’s brains,’ she added in loftily condescending tones.

‘We’re telling her a week early, Miss Clever,’ snapped Poppy, ‘because she’s the only one of us good at sewing and she’ll have to make the dresses.’

‘Weave them from spiders’ webs.’ Violet made an effort to stop crying. She brushed the tears from her eyes and managed a faint smile.

‘We were thinking about Mother’s old dresses. Up in the trunk in the attic,’ explained Daisy. ‘We could just chop them a bit so that they’re nice and short and fashionable.’

‘And the jazz band would provide the music and the boys could be dancing partners too.’ This was the most important part for Poppy.

‘But we thought we would ask Justin for you,’ put in Daisy hurriedly. Violet was not interested in the jazz club boys, who were all Poppy’s age.

‘Justin!’ Now a speculative look had come into Violet’s eyes. Daisy and Poppy exchanged glances. Violet was obviously thinking hard.

‘We’ll have to have some decent dresses, but we can do it in a week,’ she said in a determined fashion. ‘Rose, you give that parcel to Morgan. I’m going to see Great-Aunt Lizzie about those old dresses of Mother’s up in the attic. With a bit of work we might be able to do something with them.’