The Granville Sisters (3 page)

At that moment they heard footsteps and, looking up, saw Juliet descending at a leisurely pace.

For a moment Rosie looked bemused. Juliet looked taller than usual and glamorous like a Hollywood film star. A spray of white velvet roses, which certainly hadn’t come from Norman Hartnell, but more likely the bargain basement of Selfridges, lay over her left shoulder, the central rose so large that when she lowered her chin, all you could see were her aquamarine eyes, which seemed to be heavily fringed in
black
.

‘What have you done to your face, Juliet?’ Liza remarked in horror. ‘And where did you get those dreadful flowers?’

At that moment Juliet turned to face them, and to her mother’s shock she saw Juliet had cut what had been the modest V-line of her dress into a plunging ravine, which exposed her deep and provocative cleavage.

Liza gave a thready scream. ‘You
can’t
appear like that!’

But Juliet smiled, her scarlet-painted mouth so voluptuous that Henry felt quite taken aback.

‘Go and scrub that muck off your face at once,’ he whispered angrily, ‘and cover yourself up with a scarf or something.’

‘You look like a
tart
!’ Rosie stormed, tears rising, cheeks flushing.

‘That’s better than looking like a washed-out drab!’ Juliet snapped back.

‘Now, girls …’ Henry began agitatedly.

As Juliet told Louise the next morning, ‘I was literally saved by the proverbial bell. Lady Astor arrived at that moment in one of her
five
tiaras, so Mummy and Daddy had to shut up.’

That night, Juliet seemed to reach a new peak of beauty and allure. Watching, Liza realized with disappointed pang, that her precious Rosie really was going to be overshadowed by her sister. Rosie might be blonde and exquisite in a gentle way, but Juliet had something else. An indefinable charismatic quality, and sexuality that made her outstanding.

‘Isn’t Juliet a stunner,’ people kept saying. The older men eyed her wistfully and wished they were thirty years younger, and the young men gazed into her eyes and wondered if they were in with the chance of a kiss.

But Liza frowned worriedly. Bringing the girls out together had been a dreadful mistake.

‘It’s so unfair, Mummy,’ Rosie had whispered, when they went upstairs to powder their noses.

‘Oh, sweetheart …’ Liza sympathized.

‘Can’t you
stop
her?’

‘What can I
do
?’

Mother and daughter looked at each other blankly, racking their brains to think of a way Juliet could be stopped … but stopped from doing what, exactly? Being her natural self?

Liza was about to tell Rosie to be more assertive, but what was the point? Rosie wasn’t the assertive type. ‘I should have forced her to wait until next year,’ she said lamely.

Rosie’s pretty pink mouth drooped at the corners. ‘Well, it’s too late now. She’s going to spoil the
whole
summer for me. I just know she is.’

Liza had a sinking feeling Rosie was right.

As Henry watched the proceedings anxiously, he saw his mother, Lady Anne, taking a seat with a group of other dowagers.

‘Hello, Mother. You’re looking very splendid.’

‘Thank you, dear.’ She nodded as Juliet swung past in the arms of her partner. ‘She’s a little minx, isn’t she? But so enchanting,’ she observed, amused. ‘I’ve always liked her spirit.’

He smiled, raising his eyebrows. ‘She’s unsquashable.’

‘But there’s a lot of good in her. She’ll be much happier now that she’s growing up.’

‘I’ve never thought of her as being unhappy.’

‘Haven’t you, Henry? Oh, I have. The child hasn’t been happy for a long time.’

‘Mother, what do you mean?’

Lady Anne shook her head, her drop diamond earrings trembling.

‘The child’s been troubled by something since she was quite small.’

‘I can’t think what,’ he replied doubtfully.

Lady Anne patted his shoulder with her gloved hand. ‘Don’t worry about it, my dear. She’ll be all right.’

‘Yes, Mother. But will Rosie?’

The next edition of the
Bystander
dubbed Rosie and Juliet Granville as
The most beautiful débutantes to grace the London scene since Margaret Whigham in 1930
; while the
Sketch
summed up the party as
The coming-out ball of the year
. The
Tatler
went even further:
Rosie and Juliet Granville, the sublimely exquisite débutantes of 1935
,
are destined to make brilliant marriages
.

‘Look at all these thank-you letters!’ Liza exclaimed. ‘Aren’t people sweet?’

‘Look at all these bills!’ Henry said drily. ‘How can the hire of a hundred and fifty gilt chairs come to almost as much as if we’d
bought
the damned things?’

In the aftermath, bickering in the family kept flaring up at intervals because everyone was tired. A sense of anticlimax was permeating through the house like an epidemic of influenza.

Nanny complained the young ones had become ‘spoilt little brats’ overnight; Mrs Fowler had thrown a saucepan at a scullery maid because it hadn’t been cleaned properly, and even Parsons, normally calm and measured, had a sharp word for a parlour maid because she laid the table for luncheon incorrectly.

To top all this, the servants were clamouring for time off to go and watch the Silver Jubilee celebrations of King George V and Queen Mary.

The streets of London suddenly blossomed in a flurry of Union Jacks and bunting. Patriotism swept through the city like a contagious and feverish euphoria. Liza and Henry were invited to the Jubilee Ball at Buckingham Palace, but, to Juliet’s fury, she and Rosie had not been asked.

‘It’s for the grown-ups, darling,’ Liza explained. ‘You’d be dreadfully bored.’

‘So when can I go to the palace again?’

‘I expect you’ll be invited to one of the garden parties, in due course.’

Nanny was determined though, that Louise, Amanda and Charlotte should see the King and Queen travel in procession in their golden carriage from the palace to Westminster Abbey. Liza was doubtful because of the vast crowds. The children might so easily get lost.

‘You must take Parsons and Ruby with you, Nanny,’ she said firmly.

‘Very well, ma’am,’ Nanny replied obediently, though she knew there was no need. Once the children were dressed in their best pale-blue linen coats, red shoes and white socks, in the style of the King’s granddaughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose, they’d be given special treatment by the crowds, who would doubtless think they were the offspring of some European monarch.

Her scheme worked. Flanked by the butler and the nursery maid, Nanny managed to manoeuvre the girls to the front of the crowds, so that when the procession passed them in the Mall, they were in a perfect position to appreciate the magnificent carriage, with the elderly King and Queen sitting inside.

‘Look!’ Charlotte screamed with excitement.

‘Hush,’ remonstrated Amanda.

Nanny said nothing at all, because by now the tears were streaming down her plump cheeks.

‘Well …!’ she said, when she could say anything at all. ‘Did you ever …?’

‘Beats the cinema any day, if you ask me,’ Ruby agreed.

‘Quite,’ said Parsons.

Nanny blew her nose. ‘Children,’ she said as they walked home through Green Park, ‘this is something you can tell your grandchildren about. You’ll never see a grander sight, not nowhere in the world,’ she added with stout patriotism.

‘Holland Villas Road is so
out
of town,’ Liza observed. ‘Who has invited you to dine with them there?’

Rosie glanced at the letter asking her to join a dinner party before Lord and Lady Heysham’s ball. ‘It’s signed Cynthia Bartlett. The dance is at Holland House, so that’s very convenient, actually. Who’s Juliet dining with? Not with the same people, I hope?’

Liza hesitated. Juliet had actually been invited to dine with the Londonderrys. It was rather a feather in Juliet’s cap because the Marchioness of Londonderry was one of the most spectacular hostesses of the era, only rivalled by Lady Astor.

Rosie looked at her mother anxiously. ‘Who
is
Juliet dining with?’

‘Lady Londonderry,’ Liza replied casually.

‘Why has she asked Juliet?’ Rosie exclaimed petulantly.

Liza looked guiltily embarrassed. ‘It’s only for dinner, Rosie,’ she said soothingly. ‘Once you get to the Heyshams’ ball, it won’t matter who you’ve dined with.’

Rosie looked particularly ethereal that night, in a gauzy pink dress with gold beaded shoulder straps and pink and gold topaz earrings. Her skin was flushed like a sun-ripened peach, accentuating the blue of her eyes. She was determined to talk to more people, dance more dances, and generally to shine more than Juliet. She knew she looked good, too, because when she arrived at Mrs Bartlett’s house, her hostess’s eyes flashed and her thin lips vanished completely. It was obvious that Rosie was going to outshine Flora, her plump and rather plain daughter.

Once they arrived at Holland House, Rosie hung around in the cloakroom for several minutes, a trick she’d learned from Juliet, so that by the time she entered the ballroom, Mrs Bartlett and her other boring dinner-party guests had scattered.

Having been received by Lord and Lady Heysham, and Prudence, their daughter, Rosie spotted one of her friends, Megan Hamilton, sitting on the far side of the ballroom on one of the little gilt chairs provided for débutantes to sit on until someone asked them to dance. But before she’d reached Megan, a tall, broad-shouldered young man with dark brown hair and the dark sentimental eyes of a spaniel, came up to her as if he already knew her. Lady Heysham stepped out of the receiving line and for a moment Rosie thought she was going to whisk him away, but instead she smiled charmingly.

‘Rosie dear, may I introduce you to Alastair Slaidburn?’ Then she turned to the young man as if she were about to describe a rare jewel. ‘And this is Rosie Granville,’ she told him.

‘How do you do,’ he said gravely, shaking her hand.

‘How do you do.’ Her heart felt as if it was being deliciously squeezed, like gentle fingers testing a plum for ripeness.

‘Would you like to dance?’ His smile lit up his face, crinkles of laughter lines forming around his eyes.

‘I’d love to.’ They took to the floor and, as they trotted around to a quickstep, Rosie realized in a moment of crystal clarity, almost like second sight, that this was the man she wanted to marry. Happiness flowed over her like a comforting warm wave as she managed to keep up with his intricate footwork.

When he suggested a glass of champagne and somewhere to sit out for a few minutes, she accepted with alacrity. He led her to an anteroom, and they settled with their drinks on a sofa.

‘That’s better, much cooler,’ he remarked, smiling at her. ‘So, do you enjoy being a deb?’

‘I’m having a wonderful time,’ she replied inanely, sipping her champagne. Mummy had told them both they must only have soft drinks, but this, Rosie felt, was a special occasion. ‘Do you go to many of these parties?’ Her tone was hopeful.

‘Not if I can help it,’ he replied, amused, ‘but Alice Heysham is my cousin and I promised to give her a helping hand in bringing out Prudence.’

Lucky Prudence
, Rosie thought, wishing she could think of something witty and amusing to say, so he’d stay by her side for the rest of the evening.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ Alastair asked, easily and confidently. ‘Where do you live?’

The ice was broken. Rosie relaxed and she told him about her parents and the house in Green Street, how she loved to play tennis, and what sweet little sisters she had. Somehow she forgot to mention Juliet.

They danced together some more, and then, excusing himself reluctantly, he said he simply had to do a couple of duty dances, namely with his cousin and with Prudence, but would she save a dance for him after that?

‘Of course,’ she agreed blithely. She decided to spend the time powdering her nose, putting on some more lipsalve, and talking to the wallflowers who always congregated in the cloakroom rather than face the humiliation of sitting around the dance floor, hoping somone would ask them to dance.

Just as she was leaving the cloakroom, Juliet swept in, wearing a dress Rosie hadn’t seen her wear before. It was peacock-blue satin, with yellow and red silk butterflies scattered around the shoulders, and she looked amazingly exotic, with her long hair swept up into coils at the nape of her neck, interwoven with ropes of small pearls.

‘
There
you are!’ Juliet exclaimed, her blue eyes rimmed with black, like a cat. ‘Been in here all evening, have you?’ she asked with false sympathy.

‘No, I haven’t!’ Rosie snapped frostily, suddenly feeling overblown and dowdy.

Juliet gave an amused shrug, raised her plucked eyebrows and said, ‘Oh, well …’

Rosie hurried back to the ballroom, but Alastair was still steering Prudence around the floor; her expression was bovine, his bored.
Damn
, she thought; who can I talk to until he’s free?

‘Hello, Rosie,’ said a voice in her ear. It was Charles Padmore, lanky but exquisitely groomed. White tie and tails are definitely flattering, Rosie reflected. They make any man look handsome.

‘Like to dance?’ he asked.

‘That’s sweet of you, Charles, but my shoes are hurting me dreadfully; can we just talk for a few minutes?’ She fluttered her lace fan whilst keeping a surreptitious watch on Alastair’s movements.

‘If that’s what you want.’ He sounded disappointed, and she was aware of him looking at her breasts and then sweeping down to her hips before he looked into her face again. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘Yes, please.’

When he returned from the bar with two glasses of fruit punch, he droned on about the Derby the previous day and how the Aga Khan’s horse had won, until, to her relief, she saw Alastair coming towards her again.

‘Would you excuse me, Charles?’ she asked sweetly. ‘I promised this dance to Alastair ages ago.’ She made it sound like some time last year.

Crestfallen, and about to say he thought her feet were hurting her – but then thought better of it – Charles turned away, muttering something about wanting another drink anyway.