Debutantes: In Love (19 page)

‘I purposely came late; I couldn’t bear to dance with anyone but you,’ Charles murmured into Daisy’s ear as he swung her on to the dance floor. The Ritz orchestra was playing a gloriously slow, languorous waltz and they moved to its rhythm, spinning down the length of the ballroom.

Daisy looked lovingly at him, though when he spoke it was only to say, ‘I love your dress.’

‘I love your costume too,’ she said. Charles was one of the few men who had come dressed up, but the
churidar
and
dhoti
suited his dark good looks, and Daisy thought that he looked very dashing compared to the rest of the young men who were wearing the same evening clothes as their own fathers.

‘Are you ever homesick for India?’ she asked him.

‘No,’ he said with surprise. ‘I love London – and,’ he added, squeezing her hand gently, ‘London has you and India does not.’

Daisy squeezed his hand back. She caught sight of Poppy and Baz exchanging kisses as they danced. Backwards and then forwards and then another kiss; it was a good job, she thought, that their father had refused all invitations to attend his daughters’ coming-out ball. Violet was frowning at Poppy in an exaggerated way, but Poppy just laughed when she met her elder sister in the dance.

‘Wonderful party!’ called out Annette as they passed. ‘I was just saying to Jeremy that I gave you the idea. Everything Indian is just too, too spiffing, my dear. I just adore everything about it.’

Daisy laughed and waved back. Perhaps, she thought charitably, the news that Annette was setting up a marriage-broker service as they have in India had planted the seed of an idea. In any case, she was kept too busy responding to all the compliments and the excited exclamations to worry about Annette. Charles had hardly looked at the girl; his gaze was fastened on Daisy’s face and his gloved hand pressed her fingers in a close, intimate grasp. She half shut her eyes, seeing the scene as a swirl of lights and colours – ruby-red, emerald-green, sapphire-blue, set off by the glitter of diamonds and the glow of pearls. She wished that she could dance with Charles forever, wished that so many young men, introduced by Sir John, had not implored her to put their names into her dance card.

They had grown so close, she and Charles, during the past few weeks. The permission to travel to and from the studio had opened up the relationship, thought Daisy. The daily journeys had been extended by walks in Kensington Gardens to admire the blossom and the spring flowers, followed by kisses on benches under the pale green-gold branches of a weeping willow tree; by strolls along the riverside, hand in hand; the month that they had known each other seemed more like a year. Never, she thought happily, were two people more suited to each other. They thought the same on every subject; she had only to voice an opinion for Charles to agree, immediately and enthusiastically, with her.

‘I’ll remember this all my life,’ she said to him as they came together again for the first dance played by the jazz band. No longer did she feel dreamy but full of energy, the beat stirring up feelings within her that she hardly knew she possessed. She looked across at Poppy, but her twin was gazing at Baz and oblivious to everything else so she looked back up into Charles’s eyes and wondered whether the tumultuous beat of her heart could be felt by his gloved hand between her shoulder blades.

Chapter Twenty

Thursday 8 May 1924

Rose gave a quick glance around the deserted press room at the Ritz Hotel, so well equipped with tables and telephones, then took a fat notebook from her brand-new evening bag. She perched on one of the Ritz’s gilt chairs and began to write:

Seldom have such spectacles been witnessed as tonight within the luxurious portals of the Ritz Hotel

Frequent visitors stood aghast at the transformation from a staid and respectable establishment to a scene from the Far East

And what a scene

This magnificent ballroom <
comma>
usually a setting for graceful waltzes <
comma>
was filled with people rocking and shaking <
comma>
twisting heads <
comma>
fluttering hands waving from every direction

Ladies and gentlemen of the older generation froze with horror at the wild scenes that occurred <
comma>
the contortions <
comma>
the gyrations <
semi-colon>
it seemed impossible that the human body could twist itself in so many hundreds of different fashions

Lord Toomanydrinks was witnessed swinging from the chandelier <
comma>
while Lady Bignose screamed with laughter

The young Baron of Beastlyden was overheard to ask for his fourteenth bottle of champers . . .

Rose sucked the end of her pencil and then started to write rapidly again.

. . .
The Honourable Alice Hinwonderland waltzed pensively with her looking-glass while the jazz band played a tango <
comma>
but the most shocking figure of the evening was young Lady Rose Derrington <
comma>
clad in a striking thigh-length gown of coral pink <
comma>
fetched that very morning from the far Pacific Ocean

I
observed the exquisite young lady dance <
quote>
The Cake Walk <
unquote>
while surrounded by a platoon of young men standing obediently on their heads in a circle around her

The whole evening was a scene of unbridled debauchery . . .

Rose picked up one of the telephones, but the sharp ‘Yes’ from the girl in the exchange startled her. She pressed two fingers on to the bar to cut off the sound and continued. ‘Social, please,’ she said, and began to dictate fluently and clearly, condescendingly spelling out words for the stenographer who would be typing her piece in the press room of the gossip newspaper and dwelling with satisfaction on the ‘quote, unquote’.

‘That’s it; nighty-night,’ she said, remembering Poppy’s story.

And then she tore out the page from her notebook, placed it carefully beside the telephone and went off to gather new material.

Chapter Twenty-One

Thursday 8 May 1924

‘I say, Poppy, look what I got for you.’ Baz fumbled in his pocket and took out a small box, which he handed to her.

Poppy opened it and stared. The jazz band of King Oliver had just replaced the sedate Ritz band, but for once she did not listen to the opening chords of ‘Canal Street Blues’. King Oliver blew his cornet and Louis Armstrong his trumpet, Baby Dodds beat his drums, Johnny Dodds played heavenly notes on the clarinet, Lil Hardin ran her fingers over the piano keys, Will Johnson plucked the bass and Honoré Dutrey made the trombone sing, but Poppy just looked at what was in Baz’s hand.

It was a ring. The diamond was tiny; nevertheless it glowed within the broad band of gold and the ring slid on to Poppy’s third finger as though it had been made for her.

‘It was part of my inheritance from my grandfather – it was a man’s ring, but I got it cut down for you,’ said Baz, flushing a deep red, but smiling down at her.

She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him in the middle of the dance floor.

‘Oh, Baz,’ she said, ‘we’re engaged.’

Never had music sounded so beautiful to her. ‘It had to be you . . .’ she crooned into his ear as, hand in hand, they spun across the well-polished floor of the Ritz ballroom.

‘We’ll have five children, won’t we?’ he said later, as they sat together and shared an ice from the same plate.

‘Why five?’ Poppy licked the last trace of ice cream from off the china dish and smiled blandly at the wife of the Indian Ambassador.

‘Two girls to play the piano and the clarinet; and three boys to play the trumpet, the bass and the drums,’ he said.

‘Or the other way around.’ Poppy spoke absent-mindedly. Suddenly she wished for a decision, for permanence. Resolutely she got to her feet and crossed over to the bandstand. Lil had just sat back down at the piano, Louis was joking with Baby Dodds, and King Oliver was polishing the bell of his cornet with a silk handkerchief when Poppy touched him on the arm. She spoke briefly in his ear and there was a flash of white teeth in his dark face as he nodded and spoke to the band. And then he stepped to the edge of the stage and addressed the audience.

‘Ladies and gents,’ he said in his strong New Orleans accent, ‘the young lady whose coming-out dance this is tells me that she has just gotten engaged to the man of her dreams, and she wants us to play . . .’ he paused dramatically and then said emphatically, ‘ “Sweet Lovin’ Man”.’

As the first notes were blown there was a buzz of conversation, but then the other instruments came in and all the young people at the dance swept on to the floor, twisting, swaying, jitterbugging and clicking to the rhythm of the beat. Cameras flashed into the faces of Poppy and Baz and she smiled her wide sweet smile, put her head closer to Baz’s and turned him slightly towards the lenses that were aimed at them. Joan waved and beamed as she jigged her way past and then all the dancers were waving and smiling and laughing. Poppy was conscious of the appalled faces of Sir John and Elaine in the background and of how reporters were rushing to the door to get at the telephones, but she did not care. Baz gave a little wave to his mother and she waved back with a slightly amused smile. Baz, thought Poppy, was the youngest of eight eccentric children and his mother had had plenty of experiences to toughen her. She blew Lady Dorothy a kiss and then forgot about her. Daisy rushed up, flung her arms around Poppy and then went back to jitterbugging with Charles.

Suddenly Poppy was supremely happy. Everything was now out in the open. The words had been spoken in public and they could not be taken back. Her future was settled. She was going to marry Baz.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Thursday 8 May 1924

Once the jazz band had taken over, the whole atmosphere changed. Daisy held on to Charles’s hand and swung to the beat. It was their first dance together for quite some time as several of Jack’s friends had claimed her for themselves or for their sons.

And then came the drama! Daisy had seen her sister go up to the bandleader and whisper some words in his ear, but nothing prepared her for the shock announcement. Poppy engaged! Engaged to be married! As the catchy rhythm of ‘Sweet Lovin’ Man’ mesmerized the dancers, she thought suddenly of Michael Derrington in his lonely home with the huge weight of his anxieties pressing down on him.

And yet, she thought – and it was a surprisingly new thought for her–perhaps...perhaps he would be relieved. He had been amazingly accepting of Violet’s engagement to a penniless lawyer; Baz might be a youngest son, but his family were wealthy. The young couple would not be allowed to starve even if the jazz club was not a huge success.

And then she realized that Charles was steering her over towards the potted palms. One of his hands was in the small of her back and the other grasped hers firmly.