Debutantes: In Love (5 page)

There was a struggle on his face. Daisy watched him anxiously from under her eyelashes. Suddenly he got up, disentangling himself gently from their arms, and walked over to his desk. He picked up the letter from Denis Derrington and flung it into the fire. There was a momentary flash of heat as the letter burned and then the damp wood went back to sizzling slowly. Her father had picked the telephone receiver from its perch and stood holding it. In the quiet room the girls could hear the postmistress’s slightly breathless voice, saying, ‘Yes, my lord,’ in respectful tones.

‘Get me Fuggle, will you, Mrs Jefferies?’ It was typical of him that he had never bothered to memorize the telephone number of his estate manager but treated the exchange as though it were part of Beech Grove Manor.

‘Fuggle, that you? I’ve made up my mind. Get in touch with those timber merchants. I’m selling the Binton Wood timber; yes, that’s right.’

Poppy could hear the estate manager’s agitated voice and looked apprehensively at Daisy. Was everything to go wrong now, just as she thought that they had talked him around? What had made him think of Binton Wood, the finest of all the beech woods on their estate? Surely he had been told that he was not allowed to sell any more of the woods. She wished that Mr Fuggle would stop talking. Any opposition to his decisions these days sent the Earl into such towering fits of rage. Now he looked as though shortly he would foam at the mouth.

‘Sir Denis!’ he yelled, his mouth close to the receiver. ‘What has Sir Denis to do with this? It’s my property still, I would remind you. I’ll sell Binton Wood if I want to sell it. You take your orders from me, man, or you can start looking for another job.’

And then he slammed the phone down, turned to the two girls and amazingly he smiled broadly and said: ‘I’m damned if I’ll allow another man to pay for my daughters’ coming-out dresses.’

Chapter Five

Tuesday 1 April 1924

It had been snowing overnight. The bright light streamed through the threadbare curtains of the shabby bedroom Daisy shared with Poppy. She woke up, put a hand out and quickly pulled it back under the blankets. The air was freezing.

Beech Grove Manor was such a beautiful old house, but what a pity, thought Daisy drowsily, that the Earl did not have the money to heat or repair it. Even though it was April, the rooms were still freezing cold. This bedroom had been designed as a nursery for the two girls over seventeen years ago and neither the furniture nor the carpet nor the curtains had been renewed since. Years of almost no fires through the winter months had brought out patches of damp in the faded yellow wallpaper.

Still, thought Daisy, today we are going to London. She hoped that the snow would not prevent that, but then reassured herself. April snow seldom lasted long. She and Poppy had spent weeks dreaming of the day when they would finally leave Beech Grove Manor for London. Once they got there it wouldn’t matter how cold it was.

She and Poppy would be staying with Elaine, just back from the heat of India, and there was no doubt that she would have hired a luxurious and warm house and that there would be fires in every room as well as central heating. Elaine was a rich young woman. She had inherited a fortune, married a wealthy Anglo-Indian from whom she had inherited another fortune, and her second husband, the Honourable Sir John Nelborough, had recently been knighted by the dashing young Prince of Wales.

Daisy smiled. London would be wonderful. They would wear lovely clothes and have fun shopping, going to balls and perhaps even meeting handsome young men. She pictured herself in a smart short dress and short coat, with one of these head-hugging little hats, dashing through London on her way to the film studios. The thought gave her courage. Rapidly she jumped out of bed, washed in icy water from a bowl in their dressing room, pulled on a pair of ancient and well-patched riding breeches and added two large jumpers on top. She gazed at herself in the mirror for a moment. She looked rather well, she thought – very like her mother, Elaine. Perhaps, she mused, with a smile at her reflection, she would, like her mother, marry a very rich man and be able to rescue the family fortunes. She knew how it all worked out. First of all, in just over a month’s time there would be the great day. THE GREAT DAY, Elaine had written, giving it the dignity of large capital letters – the day when she and Poppy had their coming-out ball. And then another great day when they would be presented at court! And sometime at one of the balls or dances that were held during the following couple of months, an incredibly handsome man, rather like Mr Darcy in Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice
, would be attracted to her, would ask for an introduction and then would fall madly in love with her and ask her hand in marriage.

This vague figure of her imagination would be so very rich that it would be nothing for him to rescue the Beech Grove Manor estate; he would build a house somewhere on the outskirts of the beech woods, or perhaps near to the lake, and they would spend a few weeks there every year – as well, of course, as having a house in London with a special darkroom and studio for her film work and perhaps a small apartment in the fashionable part of Paris.

She sat for a moment with a smile on her face and the comb in her hand and laughed at herself and her visions. Then she went out, leaving Poppy still sleeping, her magnificent sheaf of red hair spread on the threadbare pillowcase.

The snow covered everything. Daisy stopped at the large window halfway down the stairs, rubbed the frost patterns from the glass and peered out. The weed-spotted gravel avenue, the neglected lawns and unpruned shrubs were all covered in a light blanket of snow that made them look almost magical, and the frozen lake sparkled with white crystals.

There was no one in the dining room when Daisy came in, but she was glad to see that the scullery maid had lit a small fire in the fireplace. The table was laid for breakfast and the post boy must have made his way up from the village, because there were letters already on the table – a pile of bills beside the Earl’s plate, a letter from Violet and, placed centrally between her place and Poppy’s, a letter with a Swiss stamp.

‘Letter from Lady Rose, my lady,’ said Bateman, who had followed her in. The elderly butler was trying to conceal a smile. Daisy picked it up and chuckled. The envelope said:

THE DEBUTANTES

BEECH GROVE MANOR

WOOLSDEN

KENT

And in the left-hand corner, in tiny letters, was written:

FROM A LONELY PRISONER IN A FOREIGN LAND
.

Daisy tucked the letter into the wide pocket of her riding breeches without reading it. If she opened it at table Great-Aunt Lizzie would want to know all about it and would be bound to find fault with something that Rose had said in the letter – she might even write to the headmistress. Rose was going rather over the top with her dramatic stories these days. Daisy had written to tell her to tone them down or there would be trouble, but Rose could not resist inventing new exciting happenings and dropping hints that it was not a suitable place for a well-behaved girl like herself.

‘She’s not really unhappy at that boarding school, Bateman,’ she said reassuringly, knowing he would have read the pathetic message in the corner of the envelope. ‘You know what she’s like; she always makes a drama out of everything. Switzerland will be very good for her coughs and colds.’ Rose’s health had always been a worry to her father, and that was the only reason why he had consented to Elaine’s plan to pay to send her to the same boarding school she had attended when she was Rose’s age.

At that moment she noticed on her chair an ancient book with a mould-spotted leather cover.

‘What on earth . . . ?’ she began to say and then saw the title in faded gold lettering:
Etiquette for Young Ladies.

‘Lady Elizabeth desired Nora to find this in the library, and to place it on your chair; she thought you would wish to take it with you to London, my lady,’ observed Bateman in his most non-committal fashion.

Bother, thought Daisy. I’m certainly not taking this smelly, dusty old book with me. However, it would be best to show an interest and then to tuck it away in some place where Great-Aunt Lizzie would be unlikely to find it during the next few months. Daisy settled herself on a chair as near to the fire as possible and began to turn over the pages.

‘
Never remove your gloves when making a formal call
,’ she read aloud, and yawned.

We shouldn’t be burning this wet wood, she thought as the fire hissed. Morgan, the chauffeur, who did all the odd jobs around the estate, had told Father that the timber, from one of the ancient stands of woodland, should be stacked for at least another year before burning, but they had no choice. The Earl could not afford much coal, so trees had to be cut down and the timber burned within weeks of being sawn and split.

Daisy flicked through the dusty pages of the book, skipping the sections about letter writing and country-house visiting and moving on to Court Presentations.

‘
Names have to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain
,’ she read. ‘
Only those bearing the white flower of a blameless life will pass his scrutiny. No girl who has been born out of wedlock may be presented to their majesties and admitted to the court as a debutante.
’

Daisy felt the book drop from her hands and she gazed into the fire.

What was she going to do if her secret was revealed?

If that happened, any chance of meeting a wealthy young man and making a wonderful match would be destroyed.

Chapter Six

Tuesday 1 April 1924

It was only when they were halfway to London in the old-fashioned Humber car that Daisy remembered the letter from Rose.

‘Bother,’ she said aloud, and Maud, who was coming to London with them to act as their maid, turned her head to look over the back seat and Morgan’s eyes left the road momentarily to meet hers in the mirror.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Poppy.

‘I left a letter to us from Rose in my old riding breeches and I hadn’t even opened it,’ said Daisy. She and Poppy had not packed any of the shabby clothes that they wore at home. Elaine had bought them elegant new outfits on her last visit to London and these they had kept wrapped in tissue paper and sealed into a trunk, so that they would be pristine for their next visit. Daisy, who was plump, had been conscious that a few of the clothes were a little tight on her. Still, Elaine had promised shopping trips in order to have everything right for their debut into London society.

‘Won’t be anything of importance,’ stated Poppy. She was fizzing with excitement, swinging her foot and humming fragments of jazz. ‘We’re going to be different, Daisy,’ she said. ‘We’re going to be the leaders of fashion – we’re going to have parties that will make all the other girls envious.’

Daisy giggled. ‘I can’t imagine Elaine throwing wild parties for us, and as for Jack – well, can you imagine Sir John, His Excellency, the High Commissioner of Indian Police, allowing his wife to do anything of the sort?’

‘We’ll find a way.’ Poppy tossed her splendid mane of red hair over her shoulder and smiled to herself. She lowered her voice to a whisper, glancing at the broad back of the chauffeur, and gave a quick giggle. ‘Baz and I have been making plans,’ she said, and looked out of the window.

‘You might as well put wild parties out of your head,’ Daisy said. All sorts of promises had been made and it was only when Elaine’s husband, the newly decorated Sir John, had added his plea and had undertaken to make sure that the girls were well looked after that Michael Derrington felt totally reconciled to the plans. He had made as many conditions as possible before agreeing though. They were always to be chaperoned. Morgan was to drive them everywhere. Skirts were not to be too short. And above all, they were not to get themselves labelled in the newspapers as Bright Young People. Elaine would be keeping a strict eye on them.

Poppy shrugged and grinned slyly. Daisy frowned slightly. What was Poppy up to? Baz’s sister Joan was being presented at the same time as them. Their mother had taken a house for the season and Baz was coming too, to keep his sister company and to be away from the Pattenden estate during the refurbishment works. Joan was nearly twenty, a little old for a debutante – she had gone down with pneumonia halfway through her season the year before – but she and her married sister had a reputation of being in with rather a wild set in London.