The Finishing Touches (17 page)

“What? These? Um, yes,” she said. “No. They’re for Mark. Well, for anyone really. I like putting flowers round the place, and Miss Thorne gives me the flower budget. It’s only a tenner a week so I’ve got to make it stretch, and tulips are dead cheap.”

The flower budget wasn’t a tenner a week, I thought, outraged. It was more like fifty quid a week—I’d seen the accounts! That meant Miss Thorne was pocketing, what, a hundred and sixty quid a month?

But I didn’t let on to Paulette. “I love tulips,” I said. “Are you pricking them, just under the heads, so they last longer?”

“Yeah…” said Paulette evasively. “I am now.”

“Morning!” Mark strode into the office, bike helmet under his arm. “Ready to face the only pearl-wearing dragon in London?”

Paulette giggled. “Ooh, Mark, I’ll tell her you called her that.”

“Don’t!” I said, then said it again more seriously, because I now knew Paulette was like a human parrot: she repeated everything, to anyone, at any time. “I mean it, Paulette.”

Mark coughed into his hand. “Absolutely. I was speaking figuratively, of course. Into the Dragon’s Den and all that. I didn’t mean that the fragrant Miss Thorne was in any way fire-breathing. Or ancient history. Or had a scaly—”

“Paulette,” I said over him, “we’ve got an appointment with Miss Thorne this morning, to discuss some new ideas for the Academy. Can you make sure no one interrupts us?”

She nodded, eyes wide. “Even if it’s life or death? Or her dermatologist?”

“Even if it’s Dame Barbara Cartland calling from the other side with advice about ducal proposals,” said Mark.

“What if it’s Lord Phillimore?” she asked.

I looked guiltily at Mark. “What do you reckon?”

“You haven’t managed to get hold of him?” he asked, removing his overcoat. He was wearing a suit today, not as formal as the memorial one but definitely something that said,
My proper job’s in the City.
I sensed he’d smartened up a notch from yesterday: the shirt was blue and sober, the hair was tamed, and he was freshly shaved. Maybe he felt the need to dress up against Miss Thorne too.

“What? Overnight? I haven’t had time,” I protested. “I was out late last night—I mean, I was working on this proposal, and I know he’s up in Scotland for the shooting this month, so he won’t have his mobile with him. If he’s even got one. I think his housekeeper looks after it for him.”

Mark twisted his mouth and slipped into what I suspected was school-cadet-corps mode. “Might give Thorne an open
ing. We’ll have to play it by ear. See how the land lies once we’re in there. Leave it with me.”

“Ooh.” Paulette giggled again. “Leave it with him, Betsy. You don’t hear many men say that these days.”

“I thought it was the Academy motto,” I said, and I hoped Mark noticed my arched eyebrow as I said it.

“Not anymore,” he muttered, then tapped the desk in front of me, where my notes and papers were strewn. “So,” he said, his eyes questioning but not unfriendly, “where’s this troubleshooting proposal of yours? We have manicure classes to discuss.”

Miss Thorne made me and Mark wait for five minutes outside her office while she “attended to some urgent calls.”

We knew she wasn’t attending to
urgent
calls because Paulette popped out with some coffee and pink wafer biscuits and informed us that Miss Thorne was on hold to the cattery where she was trying to book her Persian cats for her fortnight in Le Touquet.

“Pink wafer biscuits,” I said, turning one over curiously. “I haven’t seen these in years. You know there are hostess trolleys and coffee percolators downstairs?”

“You’ll probably find Florence Nightingale if you look hard enough…ah, Miss Thorne!” Mark leaped to his feet.

“Mark, Elizabeth,
so
sorry to keep you waiting.” Miss Thorne stood at the door of her office, her small hands open in apology. She was wearing a bobbly collarless jacket that was probably Chanel or, at the very least, something her “little woman behind Harrods” had run up to look like Chanel. It was in the same color scheme as the pink wafer biscuits. “Do come in.”

Mark and I followed her across the thick pile carpet, and I tried my hardest not to feel as if I’d done something wrong.
Mark didn’t seem to be suffering from the same mind-set, though, as he settled himself in the chair nearest her desk and crossed his long legs.

I noticed he was wearing brown suede wing tips with his suit, and hoped Miss Thorne wouldn’t spot them.

She did, of course.

“Brown in town, Mark?” she trilled girlishly.

Mark affected not to know what she was talking about. “I’m sorry?”

“Brown in town? Your shoes, dear!”

He looked at me, for clarification.

“What Miss Thorne means,” I said, trying to keep my face straight as Mark’s brow creased theatrically, “is that one isn’t supposed to wear brown shoes in town. And not with a gray suit.”

“Really? And why’s that?” He turned back to her. “Is this to do with stagecoaches? Or does it affect my ability to add up or something?”

She flapped her hands. “It’s just…taste, dear. A matter of taste. Your dear father would never have worn anything but highly polished black shoes in town. It was a matter of
pride
.”

“For my mother,” he added. “She was the one who polished them.”

“So long as you’re not wearing sneakers,” I said, “that’s fine with me.”

“Yes, well…” Miss Thorne gave me a sympathetic
you wouldn’t know any better
look. “That
is
the modern way.”

“Which is why we’re here!” said Mark.

“Yes,” she said, clasping her hands and resting them in front of her. “Quite. I understand you have a little proposal for me, Elizabeth?”

The hot room turned a degree or two hotter, and I drew a deep breath. Think confidence, I told myself. I could hear Franny saying,
“Smile and you’re halfway there.”

“Yes! I’ve been
tremendously
inspired in the last few days,” I said. My voice had gone very posh all of a sudden, possibly because I was trying harder than ever to channel the spirit of my notebooks. “I remembered
everything
I loved about growing up here—the elegance, the magic of adult life, the sense of style—and I’m absolutely determined that the Academy must carry on.”

“Marvelous!” Miss Thorne paused in her rummaging through the Limoges mint imperial bowl and looked up. “This
is
going to be a quick meeting.”

“But to do that,” I plowed on, before she could ring Paulette to show us out, “we urgently need to modernize what’s on offer, to attract a wider clientele. We have to distill that essence of classic Phillimore elegance into a modern, accessible version—like a diffusion line, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do, Elizabeth.” Miss Thorne replaced the mint in the bowl.

“We need to let in some fresh air,” I said.

“Literally,” she inquired, “or metaphorically?”

“Both,” I replied firmly. “It’s basic business sense. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of our potential customer, work out what they want to buy, then offer it. And make sure they know where to get it.”

“This isn’t Marks and Spencer, Elizabeth,” Miss Thorne reminded me.

“No,” said Mark. “And good job it isn’t, otherwise the refunds desk would be queueing down the stairs.”

“But we should offer that quality department-store experience,” I said hurriedly. “Fabulous, useful lessons in everyday elegance, tailored to what a modern girl needs to know. It’s not about social cachet anymore; it’s about knowing how to be stylish. People will always want that.”

“I agree. It’s about time someone looked at the hard num
bers.” Mark slid the pages of my proposal over the desk to her. “What Betsy has suggested adds up. It’s a tool kit for life—everything from handling difficult conversations to ending relationships to getting a pay raise to choosing diamonds.”

“For yourself,” I added. “Not waiting for a man to present you with one.”

“And who is to teach these marvelous lessons in…” She peered at my notes. “How to stay chic at an open-air festival? Do you mean the opera at Glyndebourne, dear?”

“No, the rock music at Glastonbury, Miss Thorne. I’ve recruited a number of volunteers,” I said, crossing my fingers. I hadn’t yet, but I would.

“Experts in their field? As knowledgeable about…” Miss Thorne glanced back down at the paper. “Minibreaks without Tears as Mrs. Angell is about spun sugar baskets?”

I had Liv lined up to teach that, though she didn’t know it yet.

“Even more so,” I said, confidently this time. “What my Minibreak expert doesn’t know about the ins and outs isn’t worth knowing.”

“I’ve gone through the accounts every way I can think of, and there’s just about enough money left to cover this term,” Mark interjected. He seemed keen to get the meeting over and done with. “For next term to happen at all, we need to sign up about ten new students with deposits before the end of this term. What Betsy has proposed, and I fully support her suggestion, is that we trial these new classes right now, advertise an Open Day to be held in about three weeks’ time—the middle of February—to relaunch the Academy for a new generation, and take it from there.”

I looked at my hands. I had an ulterior motive for the Open Day that I hadn’t confessed to Mark. Holding an Open Day meant inviting as many people as we could think of—
journalists, real estate agencies and offices whose staffs needed people skills, eighteen-year-olds heading off to university, and, of course, Old Girls who might want to give a Secret Weapons of Womanhood course as a gift to their goddaughters.

Old Girls who might then turn up and reveal themselves for inspection.

“I see,” said Miss Thorne. She turned the pages of my proposal very carefully, holding the pages between her fingers as if the ink might come off on her hands. “Oh, how sweet! How to buy a house! Adorable. But I have two problems, Mark. First, I don’t think I’d be doing my duty as principal if I let you throw out every tradition we’ve worked hard to establish here, on a whim! Have you spoken to Lord Phillimore, for a start?”

“No,” I said bravely. “No, I haven’t. He’s away, and I didn’t want to disturb him with this until I knew what your feelings were. I don’t think it would be easy to get hold of him this week, in any case—he always goes up to a friend’s in Scotland, out of reach.”

“Hmm.” Miss Thorne made a small but meaningful pout with her pink lips.

“It’s something we were going to raise at the end-of-month meeting,” I added. “If it hasn’t worked by then, then—”

This time Mark interrupted for me. “I’m confident it will work, and I know Lord Phillimore supports any initiatives to keep the Academy afloat.”

“I appreciate that, Mark,” said Miss Thorne condescendingly. “But we are bound to offer those girls upstairs the courses in which their parents enrolled them. We have legal obligations.”

“I don’t think any of them would—” Mark began.

“We can split it, mornings and afternoons,” I said. I didn’t want to horse-trade with Miss Thorne, but if we didn’t start
practicing the new classes, the Open Day would be a shambles or, worse, not be allowed to happen.

“The second problem?” Mark recrossed his legs. His socks were
red
. I really hoped Miss Thorne didn’t see those.

She smiled, catlike in her Chanel jacket, and I knew she had a trump card to deliver. I half expected our seats to hinge and slide us down to the piranha pit beneath. “Well, the second problem is that we already offer classes very similar to these.”

“You do?” I couldn’t help it. “Where? I haven’t seen any.”

“Haven’t you? Well, they are more seminars than classes. It’s a form of mentoring.” Miss Thorne was looking positively delighted now. “It’s fairly new, so it isn’t on the brochure, and—this is very much between us, Elizabeth—it isn’t on offer to every girl, only those who we feel will benefit from it.”

“What is it?” I demanded.

“We call it Personal Development,” said Miss Thorne. She looked so smug, her eyes nearly disappeared into her apple-y cheeks. “It’s designed around preparing a very specific type of girl for entering society at the very highest international level.”

“
Entering society?
” said Mark. “Isn’t that a bit nineteenth century?”

“Who teaches this?” I asked. I had a sinking feeling that I already knew the answer. How could I have forgotten?

“Actually, it’s one of our old girls!” said Miss Thorne. “You might remember her—Adele Buchanan. We’re very lucky that she agreed to come and share her considerable knowledge.”

Of course it was Adele Buchanan. Presumably she was sharing her specialist subjects: Social Leapfrog, and How to Make Friends and Marry Their Fathers.

I could see my own face in the mirror behind Miss Thorne’s desk, and the reflection was not an attractive one. I also spotted, too late, that I had a coffee blotch on the shirt I’d borrowed from Liv that morning, and while I was trying to maneuver my
scarf over it, I somehow missed the gentle hush of the study door being forced over thick pile carpet.

“Hello, Geraldine…Oh, am I interrupting?”

I looked up again into the mirror, and this time saw someone I hadn’t seen for fifteen years.

Adele must have been in her midthirties, but she looked younger than me. Still baby blond, still dressed in head-to-toe camel. Still looking through me with the kind of eyes that read everyone’s social standing like a bar code. She was the only Academy girl who hadn’t joined in the “ooh, you could be a princess!” chorus when I was growing up, preferring to look sad and murmur things about being kind to girls who “fell on hard times.”

I knew it would be very hard to persuade
this
one that I was a management consultant. She could probably tell how much I earned just from looking at my earrings.

Adele opened her mouth and smiled with enormous delight.

“Oh, my God, it’s Little Orphan Annie!” she cooed, looking as if she’d been waiting fifteen years to see me again.

“Adele, what perfect timing—
come and join us!” cooed Miss Thorne as if we were just having a spot of afternoon tea, not discussing something vitally important to the future of the very place we were sitting in. “We were just discussing your mentoring program.”

“Oh, don’t!” Adele pretended to blush modestly as she sashayed across the room and took the seat next to Mark. It was tricky to sashay across pile carpet in three-inch stilettos and a tight camel skirt, but Adele gave it her best finishing-school shot.

“You make it sound so serious, when it’s really just me trying to help the girls out as best I can, in my own way!” She turned to Mark. “Hello, Mr. Montgomery,” she said, putting a teasing hand on his knee. “How good of the world of finance to spare you!”

Mark uncrossed his legs and seemed uncomfortable for the first time.

Miss Thorne beamed at her across the desk. I’d forgotten how thick the pair of them were. Adele had won the Lady Phillimore Prize in her year, technically for being the most poised and promising but really, Kathleen reckoned, for sucking up harder than a vacuum cleaner in white gloves.

“How was your trip, dear?” she asked, as if Mark and I weren’t there.

“Oh, amazing. Such fun!”

“Have you been away?” I asked, to be polite.

“Adele has been up in Scotland,” Miss Thorne said, then waited a beat and added, “with Lord Phillimore.”

What? I could feel my mouth start to drop open and had to stop myself. Lord P’s January shooting trip was strictly old boys only—“the Toddlers,” as they called themselves, even though half of them were on their third hips. “But he never takes anyone up there!”

I almost added, “not even Franny,” but I stopped myself. Sometimes it was really hard to remember she was gone.

Adele giggled and flapped her hands. “Oh, I’m sure he would if you asked, Betsy! I just mentioned to Pelham before Christmas that I’d never been shooting—poor Edgar had an allergy to tweed, made him
swell
—so he invited me up to Scotland for a day or two before the season finished. I could hardly say no, could I?”

You bloody shouldn’t have asked, I thought. It was only a few weeks after his wife’s memorial service!

“Did you manage to bag anything?” I asked crossly.

“Isn’t it mainly ropy old birds at this time of year?” asked Mark, turning to look at me with an innocent expression.

“It depends where you’re looking,” I said.

Miss Thorne gave me a piercing look over her glasses. “Or how high you’re aiming.”

Either Adele was oblivious, or she was pretending not to notice the dark hints clattering around her.

“And how are you, Betsy?” she asked, swiveling toward me, keeping her knees demurely locked. She wore very glossy tights, I noticed, reluctantly conceding that she had the legs of a teenager. Her eyes were still a bit close together, but everything else was polished into the sort of sheen that comes from letting someone else take over your basic maintenance. She’d worked on her elocution too, because her voice was now so low and velvety she could have done voice-overs for men’s razors.

“I heard you were here…helping out,” she went on. “Pelham said I might bump into you. Anything you need to discuss, you’re very welcome to run by me, you know.” She waited a moment until I was about to speak, then added, “Don’t take this the wrong way, Betsy, but I do think I’m a teensy bit more qualified to advise them on the realities of weddings and marriage and so on. Although I’m sure you’re doing your best.”

Rise above it, I told myself. You’re a successful, fulfilled, taxpaying graduate. All she’s done is persuade old men she’s interested in golf.

“Well, I hope it’s not all going to be about weddings and marriage. Mark and I were just discussing the new direction,” I said. “We think there should be a fresh approach, with more emphasis on independence.”

“Elizabeth thinks we should be teaching girls how to change tires and apply for bank loans,” Miss Thorne confided over her desk.

Adele laughed, right on cue. “Isn’t that what husbands are for?”

“And when your husband’s laid up in hospital?” I asked, before I could stop myself. This was exactly the sort of enraging
“who needs the vote when you’ve got lipstick?” attitude that was all over the prospectus! “Or bankrupt?”

Miss Thorne shot me a look. “
Not
very sensitive, Elizabeth, considering Adele’s recent bereavement.”

“Of course, I’m so sorry,” I began, mortified, as Adele looked tragic but courageous as she waved away my apologies.

“I think everything you need to know is in that outline,” said Mark, leaping into the growing tension with a little show of impatience. “Betsy’s laid it out perfectly, I think. We’d offer five basic courses: Home Life, Work Life, Social Life, Love Life, and Family Life, each lasting a week. Clients can mix and match which courses they want. Lots of role-play, lots of lectures from experts, lots of practical discussion.”

His body language had turned brisk, and I caught a glimpse of what City Mark must be like when he was doing that “Buy! Sell!” thing, or whatever he did in his suit. It was quite steely and impressive, and not very bookish at all. I rather liked it.

So did Adele, from the shameless way she crossed her shiny calves and put her chin on her hand to listen to him.

It was as if her whole body was miming,
ooh, you’re so clever and manly
, I thought crossly. And her calves didn’t spread either.

“I’ll read the proposal,” said Miss Thorne in a regal manner. “And we can discuss it further when Pelham joins us for the January meeting. In the meantime, I give you my
temporary
approval.”

I glanced at Mark. “But the Open Day…I know it’s after the meeting, but I really think we should go ahead and start planning something.”

“I agree,” he said.

“An Open Day? What a gorgeous idea!” trilled Adele. “
Do
let me know if I can help.”

“Perfect. I’ll put you on the bread knife and sandwich fill
ing schedule, Adele,” said Mark. “You did some catering here, didn’t you?” He got up. “If you’d excuse me, ladies, I should really make a move. Give me a ring if there are any financial matters arising; otherwise, Betsy’s really the mastermind behind all this.”

With a quick nod to me and a neat body swerve around Paulette, who was entering with coffee and more biscuits, Mark slipped out of the room, and I was left very much on my own.

“So!” said Adele.

“So!” echoed Miss Thorne. “I want to hear all about your shooting holiday. Was it your first time?”

I couldn’t bear to sit through a discussion of Adele’s Highland fling with Lord P. It would have been grim enough anyway just imagining her in her Tweed Barbie outfit, but the combination of Miss Thorne’s delight in catching me out and the growing Mutual Appreciation Society atmosphere was too much.

“I should really make a move too,” I said, hoping I sounded brisk like Mark. “There’s so much to do! Letters, and so on.”

“Oh, must you dash off?” Adele pouted unconvincingly. “I’ve only just got here. I haven’t even asked you about my little surprise present for Pelham.”

I didn’t want to think about that. “I have to talk to Mrs. Angell,” I said, gesturing upstairs. Which was true enough—I needed to know whether she was up for teaching a class on Pet Etiquette. “I’m sure we’ll have a chance to catch up soon.”

“Far be it from me to blow my own trumpet…” She raised a self-effacing hand. “I’ve got
quite
a reputation for throwing parties that are talked about afterward. I’m sure it’s down to the training I had here.”

As Miss Thorne simpered and Adele simpered back in a slightly higher register, something occurred to me.

“Miss Thorne,” I began, “I was thinking that it might be
rather fun to have some Then and Now photographs dotted around the Open Day, to show we’re keeping the style but updating the teaching? Could I have a look in the archive? I’m sure Miss Vanderbilt kept some wonderful artifacts in her bureau.”

The simpering abruptly stopped. Miss Thorne’s eyes shifted from left to right as if she’d spotted a mouse running under the cupboard. “The archive? Oh, we threw a lot of things away, after…” She cleared her throat. “Let me know what you need and I’ll sift through for you. It’ll save you time, when you’re so busy.”

I got the distinct impression I was being fobbed off. “Some photographs from, say…” I pretended to think. “How about 1980-ish? The year before I arrived?”

“I’ll see what I can find,” she said tersely.

“Thank you.” I could tell I wasn’t going to get much more. “I’ll leave you to it, then!”

“Oh dear!” said Adele. “I think I’ve left my mobile phone upstairs. Would you excuse me, Geraldine, while I go and have a look? Come on, Betsy—we can have a girlie natter on the way…”

She was next to me at the door before I knew what was going on, and suddenly I found myself being swept out into the hall on Adele’s arm. Beneath the silky blouse were biceps of pure steel.

Her heels click-clacked next to mine as she powered me toward the stairs, and I racked my brain for something polite to say to her. As it turned out, I didn’t need to, because I barely got a chance to breathe, let alone contribute to any conversation.

“So how are you getting on with the girls? They’re so funny, aren’t they? Don’t you find Venetia a sweetie pie? She’s extraor
dinary—she and I have an absolute riot in our lessons together; well, I say lessons, it’s more of a chat with an older sister. I’m merely passing on my experience, because what is heartbreak if not a hard teacher? I’m sure you’re just the same. Although it’s such a different view of life they’ll be getting from you,” she babbled. “Working, I mean. Having to come home to an empty flat and putting out your own bins or whatever it is you have to do for yourself. Have you had your hair Yuko’d, by the way? It’s looking very…tamed.”

“No,” I said. Yuko’d? What was that? I’d have to check with Liv.

“I’m sorry to hear about your recent bereavement,” I said, desperate to make my apology before it went on the slate that I hadn’t. “It must have been an awful shock.”

“Well, he
would
play tennis at all hours of the day, and after a wee dram too,” sighed Adele. “I did tell him, ‘Edgar, watch your heart,’ but…” She lifted her shoulders. “
What
can you do with these outdoorsy men? I still think of him every time I smell cherry brandy. And cough medicine.”

“It takes a while to get used to it,” I said, thinking of Franny as we swept past her old rose bowl. “I know I still pick up the phone to call Franny—Lord P does too. They spent their whole lives together, you know.”

“
Did
they? Although not their
whole
lives,” Adele corrected me, with a gentle squeeze of the arm as we started up the staircase. “Pelham has years ahead of him.”

“I meant they spent nearly every minute together,” I said. “They were
devoted
to each other.”

“Yes, we were talking about that this weekend,” mused Adele. “That man is
so brave
. But I said to him, ‘Pelham, you
must
keep busy. You
have
to get out there and live the rest of your life. It’s what Frances would
want
you to do.’ As I’m al
ways telling Venetia, it’s no good thinking life is a fairy tale and that some handsome prince will come and rescue you. The girls need broader horizons. International aspirations.”

I stopped on the landing, amazed that Adele and I had a single thought in common. “Do you think so?”

“Absolutely! Why restrict yourself to Englishmen? You’ve got to
research
your prince,” Adele went on, walking again. “Have a
plan
—a nice little starter marriage, and then something challenging, and then a longer-term companionship deal, so you don’t spend your fifties trailing around IVF clinics. I’m still very young, of course, but not so young that I can afford to hang around looking miserable. Edgar would have wanted me to be happy. My next husband would ideally be titled, and still fertile, because I plan to have children at thirty-seven and thirty-nine. Then I hope to meet a lovely American chap—I’m saving Americans until I’m a little older and more in need of their excellent private health care.”

I stared at her to see if she was joking, but I didn’t think she was.

“So what’s held
you
back?” she asked, suddenly solicitous. “Don’t tell me—you were the other woman? Waiting for him to leave his wife, but he never would?” She made a
so sorry
face.

“No!” I stammered. “I was
not
!”

“Or are you one of those career girls who makes out that she doesn’t want to be looked after but secretly has a crush on her boss?” Adele wagged a finger at me. “Because that’s fine for a few years, but you’re not getting any younger—and I say that as a friend, Betsy.”

I couldn’t imagine a parallel universe in which Adele Buchanan would be a friend of mine, but I controlled myself under the gaze of several previous Lady Phillimores. Besides, we were outside the Lady Hamilton Room now, with the girls
waiting for Mrs. Angell to get out the old Sliding Scale of Tips chart. They could probably hear everything.

“I’ve got more ambitions for myself than just getting married and having children,” I managed.

Adele grabbed my forearm with both hands. “God, I’m so insensitive! It’s because you’re worried about what inherited conditions you might pass on, isn’t it? It must be terrible, not knowing your own medical history. You’re so responsible. And so right. Are you teaching this class?”

I nodded dumbly. I’d never really thought of that before. What inherited conditions
might
I have? She didn’t mean Charmer Addiction or Lack of Willpower—I honestly didn’t know what there was running through my veins.

No, I reminded myself, I
did
know. There was more than likely 50 percent Hector Phillimore. And that was something I could find out about, albeit via an embarrassing conversation with Lord P. It was something I should have done years ago.