Highland Fling (29 page)

Gelda nodded. ‘Olive oil soap? That explains why it smells so nice, and I’m always on the lookout for something new. And your mill can produce this in quantity?’

‘Not yet. But it will be able to,’ said Jenny, hoping the gods weren’t about the strike her down for over-confidence. ‘Would you be interested in it? I mean, we could use Felicity’s designs and get the clothes made up ourselves, and get you to be our outlet –’

Gelda shook her head. ‘Sorry, I don’t sell anything I haven’t designed myself.’

‘Before you say that,’ Jenny persisted, ‘can I show you something Felicity designed? I know she’ll kill me for showing you, but I think you really ought to see. It shows what you can do with other fibres, like alpaca and llama.’

Felicity got up and went through to the shop. Jenny could fully understand her nerves about having her work exposed to a professional eye. But Jenny was confident it was good enough. Even Henry, the fashion fascist, had genuinely admired it.

Gelda looked and fingered and scrunched for what seemed an agonisingly long time. ‘It’s lovely. Good old Fliss. She always was arty at school, but her parents didn’t want her to go to art college. I remember the art teacher being really indignant about it.’

‘Would you be able to sell this? Or things like it? Or would you rather you just had the fabric and did your own design?’

‘I don’t usually work with weaving like this. I feel this probably works so well because it’s been designed round the fabric, rather than the other way round. If Fliss could do more like these, I would put them in the shop. I always felt she got a raw deal.’

‘She did –’ but before Jenny could explain further, Felicity came back in.

‘It’s all right, Gelda. I don’t mind if you don’t want to sell it. Just tell me it’s not complete rubbish, and I’ll be happy.’

‘It’s not complete rubbish, and I’d be happy to sell it in my shop, provided you can produce as many as I need. It’s quite unlike anything I do, but I think there might well be a market.’

Felicity sat down quickly. ‘What did you say?’

Gelda laughed. ‘You heard right the first time. I’ll sell these if you can keep me supplied. I’d like six to start with, to see how they go. Mind you, if they don’t go, I’ll send them back to you.’

‘You are so kind!’ said Felicity.

Gelda shook her head. ‘I may be kind as a person, but, as a businesswoman, I’m a walking balance sheet. I haven’t the space to clutter my shop up with stuff that hangs around.’

After Felicity had been talked down off her cloud enough for Jenny to feel safe to change the subject, she shook out the dress again.

‘How would you feel about using nuno felt for your own designs?’ They needed Gelda to do more than just take Felicity’s stuff, if she was going to be of real use to them.

Gelda nodded. ‘I might be interested. I’d need to look into it a bit more. But it does fall beautifully. And you can incorporate different colours into it, you say?’

Jenny nodded. ‘Would you like to see our other samples? Fabric made of alpaca and llama fibre? They can be spun or woven. I’ve got both here.’

By the time Gelda finally shut up the shop and carried them off to lunch at a restaurant where Gelda seemed to be a friend of the family, Jenny’s spirits were rising. No promises had been made beyond taking Felicity’s shawls, but Gelda was definitely interested in the nuno felt, although not the suitings. Almost interested enough, she felt, for Jenny to say with some confidence that they had a market for the felt. But could she get Gelda to put anything in writing? Jenny decided that lunch somewhere really nice was a legitimate business expense. She just
hoped the business would exist long enough to pay her back.

Grateful that they had no more appointments for that day, Jenny looked forward to falling onto a train and going home. But Felicity, her confidence hugely boosted, wanted to go shopping. As she hadn’t been for several years, it seemed unfair for Jenny to discourage her. No one, she discovered, liked shopping better than an agoraphobic in remission.

‘I can’t believe I’m in Selfridges and not having a panic attack!’ Felicity kept saying. ‘Shall we take a cab to Harvey Nicks? I haven’t been there for years.’

‘We don’t want to look like we’re something out of
Absolutely Fabulous,’
said Jenny plaintively, but Felicity hadn’t heard her and was waving down a black cab like an old retail-therapy hand.

The next day, in spite of having made an appointment, Jenny had to go through several layers of assistants before she reached the person whose name was on Meggie’s bit of paper. The man in question looked busy and authoritative, some years older than Meggie. Jenny hoped she didn’t have to mention Heggie Johnstone’s twenty-first birthday party.

‘Hi.’ She stretched out her hand. ‘Jenny Porter. You don’t know me, but your name has been given to me by Meggie – Meggie – oh God, I have no idea of her maiden name.’ After all her careful preparations, how could she have made such a silly mistake? She gave Alan Frazier her most charming smile. ‘You were at college together. Can I make a quick phone call?’ Why hadn’t she brought Felicity with her, instead of leaving her to sleep the sleep of the dead in her mother’s
house? She fumbled for her mobile phone, the personification of incompetence.

Alan Frazier perched on the edge of the desk. ‘Wait a minute, what does she look like?’

‘Smallish, reddish hair, curls. Very vivacious.’

He nodded. ‘I know Meggie. A very pretty girl.’ He had just enough of the Scots in his accent to make his voice very attractive.

So far, so good. ‘Well, she suggested I get in touch with you. She said you were the best tailor in London.’

‘And she would know, of course, having buried herself in the Highlands with Iain Dalmain?’

Oh God, don’t say he was jealous of Iain, and wouldn’t help anything with Dalmain in the title. Jenny shrugged. ‘She’s probably quite wrong, of course.’

Alan Frazier laughed. ‘She’s not as far out as she is far away. Is she happily married?’

Jenny nodded. ‘She’s just had her first baby. A girl. Called Anna.’

‘Would you like some coffee? Tea? Meggie didn’t say anything about Heggie Johnstone’s twenty-first, did she?’

Jenny blushed. ‘Do you mind if I take off my jacket? It’s awfully hot down here, after Scotland.’

‘Be my guest. Now, what have you got to show me?’

Jenny got out her case. ‘You could either buy the fabric from us, and produce your own garments using it. Or you could market it under your own name.’

‘Very kind of you – Jenny – did you say your name was?’

She nodded, blushing again. ‘I’m so sorry. I came
down on the sleeper yesterday and I think I left all my tact under the pillow. It was rather hard.’

He laughed. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got …’

She met Felicity for lunch, and by the time they finally got back to Fay Porter’s house, Jenny was too tired to talk. She just sat in an armchair by the fire and listened to her mother and Felicity chatting. They were surrounded by magazines and were talking wedding dresses, the meringue versus the sleek silk suit.

‘Of course, if you have a wedding in the evening,’ said Fay, ‘which is getting very popular, I gather, you can wear a more eveningy dress. What do you think, Jen? Personally I feel white net has rather had its day.’

Belatedly, Jenny realised her mother was trying to talk Felicity out of a meringue, and needed support, but she didn’t have the energy to form either an opinion or an argument. She didn’t know if she’d brought anything off or not. Both Gelda and Alan Frazier were interested, but they hadn’t confirmed their interest sufficiently for Jenny to feel jubilant.

‘Whatever Felicity feels happiest in,’ she said.

Her mother frowned. ‘I think it’s time you went to bed. Would you like some hot chocolate?’

‘Oh, Mum! That would be bliss!’

Chapter Eighteen

When Jenny and Felicity arrived back at Dalmain House, no one seemed very much interested in how they’d got on in London. The dinner party was all Lady Dalmain and Henry could talk about.

Jenny couldn’t decide if she had genuinely forgotten about it, or had just blanked it out, but she and Felicity were cursorily greeted and then drawn into the conversation as if they’d never been away. Although it was lunchtime, no one was eating, and Jenny was glad that she, Felicity and Henry, who’d met their train, had called in at a pub for a snack on the way home.

‘We couldn’t wait for you girls to come back from your jaunt,’ said Lady Dalmain, in high spirits. ‘So we set a date. It’s tomorrow! All the guests are invited, and I’ve ordered the beef, so it should be plain sailing for you, Jenny.’

Jenny clutched at the glass of whisky Felicity had put into her hand rather desperately. ‘Have I missed something? What’s this to do with me?’

‘Well – you agreed to cook for me,’ said Lady Dalmain.

‘Did I? Are you sure? It’s terribly short notice. I’ve only just got back, and I’ve got to write a –’

‘Really, sweetie! You can’t think of letting Lady
Dalmain down.’ Henry was at his most disapproving.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Jenny persisted. ‘But when I agreed, if I did, I didn’t think it would be the day after I got back from London. These things take time to organise.’

‘But you know how good you are at pulling things out of a hat! You should see her at home, Ismene. The kitchen’s in chaos, and I can’t believe anyone’s ever going to get anything to eat, and then she produces a fabulous meal. It’s like living with Delia Smith.’

‘Not quite,’ hissed Jenny through clenched teeth, wondering how long Henry had been on first-name terms with Lady Dalmain.

‘Nigella Lawson, then, but don’t you worry,’ he smiled reassuringly at Lady Dalmain. ‘I know Jenny will do you proud.’

Jenny, disturbed at being likened to two such celebrated cooks and confused why she should be obliged to emulate them, was just about to ask, when she caught Felicity looking pathetically like a child who has been told it can’t go to the zoo after all. She sighed and realised she would have to do it, for Felicity’s sake. The others could go hang, she decided, but Felicity deserved a treat. Seeing Lachlan in a kilt was a small reward for all she, Felicity, had done, but Jenny would make it possible.

‘I’ve invited Philip’s new … the sons of his – friend too. Philip tried to put me off, saying they were totally uncivilised, but if they’re part of the family, they had better get used to our ways.’

Jenny disguised her chuckle with a choking fit. Perhaps there was a god, and Lady Dalmain might yet get her comeuppance. ‘They are rather – streetwise.’

‘And what does that mean, exactly?’ asked Lady Dalmain.

‘It’s hard to give it an exact meaning,’ said Henry. ‘I expect Jenny means they are boys who’d be more at home in a pub or a club, or on a street corner, than in a civilised drawing room.’

Lady Dalmain frowned. ‘Well, I’ve told Philip they’re to come now. If they’re too bad, they can eat their dinner in the kitchen.’

This time Jenny nearly did choke. ‘You can’t!’

Fortunately Felicity and Henry joined in. ‘Really, Mama!’ ‘I don’t think, Lady – Ismene …’

‘Oh very well, but we must make sure they don’t get the very best china.’

‘So, how many people have you invited?’ said Jenny, who felt she’d better take some interest, given she was supposed to be cooking. ‘Will it just be Philip’s new family, and Meggie and Iain?’

Lady Dalmain regarded Felicity sternly. ‘Principally, this is a dinner party for Ross Grant-Dempsey, for him to meet some of the local families –’

‘But, Mama!’ broke in Felicity, not quite the cowed woman she had been before she left Scotland. ‘You definitely said it could be an engagement party for me and Lachlan!’

‘Did I, dear? Well, it could be a joint engagement for Philip and’ – only the tiniest pause – ‘Gloria.’

‘Why, are they getting married?’ demanded Felicity.

‘Well, no. I gather there’s a little problem with her divorce,’ said Lady Dalmain. ‘Gloria most wisely didn’t want Philip involved in it, so they’re waiting until her first husband – or is it her third? – has been gone the requisite time.’

‘So they’re not really getting engaged at all?’ persisted Felicity.

‘Darling, I don’t know quite why you’re so keen on having an engagement party. I mean, you’re not a spring chicken any more, are you?’

‘Mama,’ said Felicity, quiet but firm, ‘I have been known as the Spinster of the North by everyone who is anyone in this area, more or less since I came back from school. I would quite like it to be known that even if I am no longer a “spring chicken”, as you call it, I’m not too old to get a husband.’

‘Oh. Very well. Though I would have thought you’d want to be more – well, anyway, I’ve invited the Malcolms. Fiona Malcolm will do for Ross Grant-Dempsey.’

Jenny found herself squeaking and turned it into a word. ‘Oh?’

‘Henry’s met the family, haven’t you? And she’s charming, really quite attractive. All that expensive orthodontia finally paid off. She’s hardly goofy at all, now.’

‘The younger girls are complete bitches, if I remember rightly,’ said Felicity.

‘Nonsense! Of course they’re not. It’s only you being neurotic, as usual.’