Small Plates (9 page)

There was a lull in the conversation as the women consumed the meal with obvious enjoyment. Inveterate eavesdroppers such as ourselves surely would have felt a twinge of disappointment at this interruption to what had earlier been a juicy conversation indeed.

Coffee arrived and a trio of desserts: mascarpone cheesecake, white-chocolate bread pudding, and a seasonal caramelized apple tart. There was much tasting and sharing before the conversation returned to the matter at hand: a wedding.

Curtain up.

I
'm extremely touched that you would want me as . . . what would you call it—not a bridesmaid, an attendant?—and I'm sure Hope is too, but don't you Brits usually have adorable small children accompany you?” Faith Fairchild said.

Faith's sister, Hope, was not only an Anglophile but also a Royalist and quickly concurred, citing notable examples back to Princess Anne. She added, “I do think Faith is right, Polly. Lovely that you want us by your side on your big day—well, second big day—but what about Tess and Fiona?”

Polly Ackroyd had gone back to her maiden name after her first, very brief, marriage—the first “big day”—had gone down the drain. Quite literally, as it happened. She had returned to their London flat early from a trip to her parents' estate in Scotland intending to surprise her newly minted husband. Under her well-cut Highland tweeds she was wearing some very naughty knickers and not much else. Instead the surprise was all hers when she discovered hubby David enjoying a rumpy-pumpy in the Jacuzzi with one of her best friends. “Such a cliché,” she had later moaned to Faith and Hope, whom she'd met as a teenager when they were all at the Dalton School during the years Polly's father, Godfrey, did “something diplomatic” in New York. Polly had pulled the plug on the tub and the marriage, tossing her husband's bespoke wardrobe into the street and changing the locks.

Faith was delighted that Polly had found someone to erase the memory of that first matrimony. She did agree with Hope, however, about Polly's attendants. “If you don't want the little ones, then shouldn't you ask your sisters? One or both?”

Technically Tess and Fiona were Polly's stepsisters, added to the family in a genealogically challenging way. Godfrey Ackroyd married a widow with two small daughters, and she died before they had any offspring. He then married again. Since Tess and Fiona's late biological father was a kind of cousin to their adoptive one, Tess and Fiona became Ackroyds. It was generally thought to have worked out well, blood will tell. Possibly Polly's mother may have blanched a bit at taking on two small children before producing her own, but that was why God had created nannies.

Tess and Fiona had both been at university when Godfrey Ackroyd accepted the New York posting, but they had spent enough time in Manhattan for Faith and Hope to get to know them. Accomplished, attractive, and extremely self-confident, Faith, for one, had always found them more than a little scary. Unlike Polly, they were keen on sports, especially riding—younger versions of Camilla Parker Bowles.

Polly was sitting up very straight. “Aside from the fact that I consider you two my sisters more than either of them, there's a bit of a hiccup just now with Fiona.”

“A hiccup?” Hope asked, wondering whether this was a British medical euphemism or simply a bump in the road.

“You see, I met darling Ian at Fiona's engagement party.”

“And that's a problem, because . . . ?” Faith said

“Because it was his and Fiona's.”

“I think we need more coffee—or maybe a drink,” Hope said.

Definitely a bump.

T
hey ordered three of Fred's St. Germain cocktails, elderflower liqueur with white wine and a splash of soda.

“It was a coup de foudre for both of us,” Polly said. “I know, I know, terribly awkward, but what could we do?”

Polly's posh BBC-announcer accent ordinarily made even a remark about the weather sound both charming and important. It turned these two sentences into memorable lines—like something straight from a drawing room comedy by Noël Coward.

“I hadn't met him before, just heard Fiona go on about him. Did something terribly important in the City, old family, always a horse at Ascot. All the things that matter a great deal to her and not at all to me, so I never really paid attention. How was I to know how perfectly scrumptious he was?”

Although this sounded as though she were describing a slice of Victoria sponge cake, both Hope's and Faith's expressions signaled agreement. The first thing Polly had done after greeting them earlier was show them photos of Ian on her phone and her ring, in that order. Ian made Colin Firth look rather plain, and the ring would have made a fine addition to the Crown Jewels.

“I gather Fiona is cutting up rather rough about it all?” When Faith was with Polly, or other British people, she tended to adopt the language and struggled not to unwittingly imitate the accent as well.

“Yes, actually, she is. It's why I'm here. Mummy thought it best for me to leave the country for a while. Ian, poor dear, has to work and in any case, he would never turn tail and run.” Polly's voice was filled with pride, suggesting the kind of hero unafraid to stare down a tiger.

Faith still hoped Ian was being vigilant. Fiona, and Tess, who must be beyond furious on her sister's behalf, would be formidable foes. He wouldn't be showing his face much around town, she supposed, but he could always hole up at White's, the venerable gentlemen's club in St. James that still had a “men only” policy, breaking it just once, for a visit from the queen. Ian was bound to be a member, given the pedigree Polly had hinted at and Fiona would have required.

“When did all this happen?” Hope said.

“The wedding was supposed to be at Christmas and they got engaged in June, but you know how everyone is always away on holiday in the summer, so the big official party was two weeks ago.” She looked a bit sheepish. “We feel terrible, of course, but think how awful it would have been if we'd first met at the wedding. Ian is such a kind person. He doesn't even like to swat a mosquito, so you know how difficult this was for him.”

Silently noting that ditching one's fiancée two and a half months prior to the nuptials was a bit more than slapping at an annoying pest, Faith said, “Wouldn't it be better to slip away to Gretna Green or wherever it is people go these days to elope, get married quietly, and then take an extremely long honeymoon? India? The Amazon?” Tigers and mosquitoes were getting mixed up in her thoughts.

Polly emphatically shook her head no.

“Ian has never been married before, and I'm not going to deny him a real wedding. It won't be Saint Margaret's. That would be salt in the wounds, since he and Fiona were to have been married there. Besides, that's where David and I were married. Possible bad karma. No, the sweet vicar at Saint Michael's has said he will marry us there in June. That should give Fiona—and Tess, she's quite
fâchée
too—time to calm down, plus Mummy and I need to work out all the details. Wedding breakfast not at the Savoy as last time, but someplace nice. And I nipped over to Beauchamp Place before I left. Suzanne Neville has my measurements and is sending some sketches for my dress, which reminds me she'll need yours. I'm thinking sapphire. Something bright like stained glass. The church has a gorgeous Evie Hone rose window that replaced the one the Nazis bombed. Horrible Huns.”

Noting that Polly was beginning to sound like a character from a Nancy Mitford novel, Faith reconsidered her initial objection to being Polly's attendant. It really couldn't be one or both of Polly's stepsisters. Even though June was many months away—and surely Fiona wouldn't want to marry someone who didn't want to marry her—it was her pride that had taken the bad fall. Fiona's was on a scale with Everest, hence a long way down.

The thought of Polly's wedding was enticing—and a dress from the noted British designer Suzanne Neville! Heaven!

Being eight and a half months pregnant with Ben, who was now in second grade, Faith had missed Polly's first wedding. Hope's description of it had left her feeling very envious, especially as about the time when the couple were exchanging their vows, Faith was in the throes of delivery, wondering why the ordeal was called a blessed event. While “labor” was aptly named, “easy childbirth” was definitely an oxymoron.

St. Margaret's Westminster, right next to the Abbey, was
the
place for society weddings, many of them royal. It had been especially popular among the 1920s Bright Young Things, wealthy Bohemians who ran around London between the wars, stealing bobbies' helmets and drinking champagne from slippers—precursors to the set haunting Annabel's in the 1960s and '70s. Same elite class, same tony addresses—streets and titles. Which reminded Faith that Polly was able to get married at St. Michael's in Highgate because, among other holdings, her parents had an extremely beautiful house there. She and Hope had spent time as guests on several occasions before each of them had gotten married themselves. It all seemed ages ago, even if it wasn't, strictly speaking.

Marriage and motherhood had fast-forwarded the years for Faith. Ben had been joined by Amy, and now that Amy was in kindergarten, both were blessedly in school. She adored her children, but God had not dropped a Mary Poppins into her household. Hope, a financial lawyer, had married Quentin after much synchronizing of BlackBerrys to find a moment both wouldn't be working. No progeny yet, but Hope had mentioned it would be coming up on the agenda in the near future. Despite their closeness in age—Faith was a year older—and closeness as sisters, the two former Sibleys were as different as two siblings could be. Faith had found her calling in the kitchen as a caterer; Hope skipped
My Weekly Reader
and went straight to the
Wall Street Journal
. Her life was an agenda, whereas Faith's was a to-do list.

London in June. Could she possibly get away? One look across the table at her sister hinted that the same thought was running through Hope's mind and her next words confirmed it: “I suppose we'll have to organize a hen party for you.”

Polly squealed, “I knew you'd do it! Now, let's get squiffy,” and ordered another round.

P
olly's first accident occurred two days after the lunch at Fred's. Faith was still in the city, ostensibly there for early Christmas shopping and a visit to her parents. Faith and Hope had grown up as PKs—Preacher's Kids—in a duplex apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Although not exactly a traditional parsonage, it had been a fishbowl existence nonetheless. This had led to a pact between the sisters to avoid it, but Faith had had her own coup de foudre, meeting the Reverend Thomas Fairchild at a wedding she was catering and falling head over heels before realizing he was at the reception because he had just performed the ceremony. Now ensconced in a New England parish, she regarded these periodic trips back to her hometown as lifelines.

She was at her parents' apartment when Hope called with the news.

“Polly got jostled on the subway platform—why she was there, she never takes the subway, I do not know—and would have fallen onto the tracks in front of the oncoming train, if a man hadn't grabbed her in time. Unfortunately in the process, he had to push her down on the concrete and landed on top of her. Nothing is broken, but she's badly bruised and of course shaken. I can't leave work. Could you go get her? She's at Mount Sinai. Stay with her at the apartment? I'll come as soon as I can.”

“Of course. I'll leave now. Terrible! But thank God it wasn't worse.”

After picking her up at the hospital, Faith bundled a frightened and pale Polly into a cab and they headed downtown. The Ackroyds kept a pied-à-terre on Gramercy Park. Faith tucked Polly into bed with one of the Percocets the hospital had prescribed and went into the kitchen to make some mint tea, among the young woman's favorite tipples, so there was sure to be some in the larder. There was, also bread and jam. Faith made toast and arranged everything on a tray. There was Marmite too in the Ackroyd pantry, but lines must be drawn.

“Well done, you,” Polly murmured muzzily. The Percocet was working.

Faith plumped the pillows and Polly sat up. Her room was classic Colefax and Fowler. All that was needed was a Corgi or two. Faith glanced out at the private park that gave Gramercy Park its name and exclusive reputation. It was barren now as fall was ending and could have been any one of London's similar squares. She half expected to see a double-decker red bus go by.

As Polly nibbled the toast and sipped her tea, Faith decided that the patient was doing better, so she began with gently quizzing her about what had happened, starting with the obvious.

“Why were you in the subway? Where were you going?”

“Oh, you mean the Underground. But don't you know? I got your text on my mobile telling me exactly which tube to take at Grand Central station and get off, oh dear, I can't remember where, but you said it was the best way to get to Bloomies and we'd have a jolly time trying new makeup. Although, Faith, you do know that I am positively wedded to MAC and absolutely everything Molton Brown for skin . . .”

Her voice trailed off at the end, and Faith knew she had to let Polly sleep, but she had one last question.

“Did they take your purse for safekeeping at the hospital?”

She had to ask, even though she was quite sure what the answer was going to be.

“They must have, mustn't they? And you have it now? You are an angel, Faith. You and Hope. What would I do without my Yankee sisters? I just thought of that. ‘Yankee sisters.' Sounds like a pop group. Quite funny, yes? Must remember to tell Ian.” And with that Polly went out like a light.

The hospital had given Faith a small clear plastic bag with the jewelry Polly had been wearing—her watch, a string of pearls, and plain gold hoop earrings. No purse. It must have been snatched when she went down. By someone seizing the opportunity—or someone who was part of a plan?