The Finishing Touches (35 page)

He started snapping away, and I covered my face instinctively.

Then I removed my hands and removed my shades too, for good measure.

I spoke very slowly, so she’d get every word and he’d get my best side. “My real mother was Frances Phillimore,” I said. “She was a gentle, wonderful lady, and if I could be half the woman she was, I’d be very happy.”

It was then that I turned and saw Lord P standing behind me, listening to everything I’d said.

The expression on his face was so dignified and grateful and uncharacteristically emotional that I nearly wept.

Behind him was Nell Howard. And she looked on the verge of tears too.

We found ourselves in the principal’s
office, where Lord Phillimore sat behind Miss Thorne’s desk, looming awkwardly over her knick-knackery and mint imperial bowl, not quite sure where to rest his arms for fear of breaking something.

It was the first time I’d been in this room without Paulette stumbling in with a tray of coffee at just the wrong moment—and I had to fight the temptation to go out and make some.

“Where should we start?” asked Lord P, and his lack of training in difficult conversations showed. His shoulders were somewhere up by his ears.

“How about with me?” I suggested half-hysterically. I turned to Nell. “Forgive me for coming out with a straight question, but are you my mother?”

I could see it now—there was something in her oval eyes and tilted eyebrows that wasn’t unlike mine, though her dark hair wasn’t anything like mine. I wouldn’t mind if Nell was my mother, I thought. At least she was fun and had a job…

“No,” she said, and pulled her generous mouth tight at one corner. “Sorry.”

The simpering crowd of drug-addled bimbos and stupidly named boys reappeared before my eyes. I leaned back in my seat and shut my eyes.

“I’m your aunt,” she went on, and my head spun so fast I nearly cracked a vertebra. She smiled ruefully at my obvious shock. “Believe me, it was as much of a shocker for me as it is for you. Shows what you know about your own family, eh? What next, Lord Lucan hiding out in the attic? No, sorry, should be serious.”

Nell composed herself as if rearranging a complicated list in her head. When she spoke again, it was in a more sober tone. “My elder sister Rosalind called me last month when she heard about Lady Frances’s memorial service, and said she had something to tell me. She lives in Switzerland now, runs her own company supplying staff for chalets—none of us see her very often. I thought she was going to ask me to pass on some kind of message to Lord Phillimore here, because she always adored Lady Frances, thought the sun shone out of her lead crystal sherry glasses…”

“Rosalind was one of Frances’s favorites too,” added Lord P. “Beautiful handwriting. Very quiet. Never had to worry about her at social events, unlike some of the little trollops in her year…” He recovered himself and put three mint imperials in his mouth to prevent further comment.

Nell coughed. “Anyway, Rosie dropped a bit of a bombshell—she told me, quite calmly, that
she’d
been the one who left the baby on the step. I had no idea, I swear to you! Couldn’t believe it—my own sister, who only read the horsey bits of Jilly Cooper’s novels and skipped the sex!”

“How?” I asked. “And…who? And…when?” I pleaded with my eyes. “I just want to know…it wasn’t anything—”

“No! No, it couldn’t have been more of a Phillimore romance,” Nell insisted. “Rosie was an innocent from Buckinghamshire, and your father was a Guards officer called Henry. Captain Henry Buckhurst. Apparently Rosie met him at a formal dining evening, upstairs in the ballroom. We used to have these nights with crowds of eligible men, putting our skills into practice,” she explained, “with Vanders and Lady Frances watching us like hawks, and the bursar invited officers from his old regiment to be our other halves for the night. They were rather dashing in uniform, even the ones you wouldn’t normally give the time of day in civvies. Brave too. Much more the sort of chaps we were supposed to be aiming for, not like slimy Hector and his dreadful cronies.”

Nell flashed an apologetic glance up at Lord P. “Sorry.”

He tilted his head, as if he couldn’t really disagree.

“What was he like?” I asked curiously. “Henry?” It felt too weird to call him “my father.”

“I never met him,” Nell admitted, “and Rosie only had one photo, but she said he was like something out of
War and Peace
in his uniform—gorgeous eyes, broad shoulders. Red hair. The works. He’d already got some decoration or other for valor, but she said she fell for him when he admitted that he was terrified of Coralie Hendricks and what she might do to him on the balcony.”

“And they fell in love over dinner?” I asked, embroidering the scene in my mind. The best silver. Bare shoulders. Roses.

“Oh, yes. Who wouldn’t?” Nell smiled nostalgically. “What with the candlelight and the champagne and everyone flirting their heads off, I can see why Rosie got carried away. She wasn’t too experienced in the old romance game, God love her.
Imagined you went from eyes meeting over the centerpiece to the announcement in
The Times
to a house in Gloucestershire all in one go. No one really explained the stickier bits in between—despite Coralie and Sophie carrying on…Anyway, I was at school still, had no idea what was happening, apart from her letters raving about this dishy soldier who made her feel weeny and fragile, but the next thing we know, the aged parents get a letter from Rosie to say she’s upped and gone to Meribel for a few months to learn how to make fondues.”

“Sorry?” I frowned, wondering if I’d missed something.

“No, we didn’t get it either.” Nell lifted her shoulders and then dropped them so hard her earrings jangled. “But that’s what girls did, went off on courses. Two months learning tartiflettes here, three months on ancient crocks at Christie’s, two months ruining your nails touch-typing…Rosie sent us the occasional postcard—the parents weren’t too bothered, considering she seemed to be in with some jolly nice people. And then she reappeared around Christmas, and she couldn’t even use a fondue properly. That’s when I knew something wasn’t right.”

I rubbed my eyes. “She hadn’t been in Switzerland?”

“No. She hadn’t. She’d been hiding in Cheltenham the whole time.” Nell looked guilty, as if she should have known. “She’d seen the divine Captain Henry for a couple of weeks, and they’d been absolutely head over heels, and he’d given her that lovely bee charm for Christmas, with a ring to follow, but then his regiment got their marching orders, and he couldn’t tell her where they were going because it was all so hush-hush. You see? Terribly Battle of Waterloo. But she’d carried on writing, and then one day all her letters came back in a bundle. She couldn’t find anything out, since she wasn’t family or anything, until there was a little obit in
The Times
. He’d been killed in Northern Ireland, in a terrorist operation that went wrong.”

Nell’s eyes filled up, and mine did too. “Rosie was in a real state, and then the poor darling found out she was in the family way. Took her long enough to work it out, but when she did, she panicked and decided that if she didn’t tell anyone, she could pretend it never happened. Our parents would have gone berserk, and she hadn’t even
met
Henry’s, so she found herself a nursing home, like you could then, and said she was skiing.”

“And then popped back and left me on the steps,” I said hollowly.

Nell nodded. “She knew Lady Frances adored children, and she thought she would look after you better than she could. Make you into the lady poor Rosie had decided she wasn’t.”

“But that’s so ridiculous!” I protested. “It’s not a crime to make a mistake! People have unexpected babies all the time! Why didn’t she just
tell
someone?”

“Because…” Nell struggled to find the right words. “She felt she’d spoiled everything. We were in a Cinderella frenzy that year—the Royal Wedding seemed like our
own
fairy tale, a nice finishing school girl like us, friend of a friend, no O levels but awfully sweet, no previous success with chaps, bags a prince! We thought,
well
, if it could happen for Diana Spencer, it could happen for us too. And poor Rosie…She’d dreamed of that. I mean,” Nell added, “if we’d known then what we know now, she’d doubtless have acted a bit differently, but then…Well. Rosie did what she thought was best, and made herself live with the consequences.”

It was a lot to take in at once. Suddenly I had a real mother and a real father whom my real aunt seemed to know as well as I now did.

I turned to Lord Phillimore. “Didn’t you try to find out who’d left me? Franny must have recognized the necklace.”

“Quite tricky, asking parents if their daughters have mislaid
any newborn babies recently,” he said mildly. “Of course we made discreet inquiries—I gave Hector the third degree, just to be sure, but he claimed not to know a thing.”

“He didn’t,” added Nell. “Henry wasn’t one of his friends. He barely even
drank.
”

“And what happened to Rosie?” I asked. “What happened after she left me?”

“She went abroad and got herself a job, which was pretty unheard of back then.” Nell seemed proud. “She built up her own business in Switzerland, organizing chalet girls for ski parties and making sure they didn’t get into trouble. Turned into a right bossy boots, curfews and checks and everything. Marie Slopes, we called her.” Her face fell. “Of course, if we’d known…”

I tried to make sense of it all in my head. “So, when you met me at the memorial…did you know who I was? Did you go there to find me? How did you know what I’d look like?”

Nell fiddled with her cuticles, a habit I’d struggled with for years myself. “I was going anyway, but Rosie asked me to work out whether you wanted to be found. She was too scared to come along herself—worried that you might be there, and you’d think her a bit of a crasher for turning up at your real mother’s memorial service.”

She gave me a self-deprecating grin. “Not the
best
manners, really, for you or for Lady Frances. Bit of a scene stealer, don’t you think? So she sent me to find out, as best I could, what sort of feelings you had, if any, for the frightened little girl who’d left you on the steps.” She paused apologetically. “Her words, not mine, there.”

I tried to remember exactly what she’d said to me, when she’d accosted me by the photos. All I could remember was her feathery hat and her friendly face. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you pretend not to know who my mother was?”

“Because I didn’t know whether you even cared about her,” said Nell, suddenly serious. “For all I knew, you might have wanted to track her down to give her a piece of your mind. Or Frances might have told you a different story, that you still believed, and I wasn’t sure if it was the right place to start telling you that you weren’t actually a Royal love child or what have you.”

“And did you spot me straightaway?” I held my breath, hoping that some family connection had brought us together, even if we didn’t know.

Nell nodded. “I thought I wouldn’t, but I knew, once I saw you. You smile like Rosie does, and you start conversations with strangers in the same brave “what can we talk about?” way. But you’re more like Lady Frances in everything else.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes.” Nell nodded. “You stand the same, with that lovely straight back, and you have the same mannerisms, the way you tip your head when you’re talking, and that adorable smile…”

“And you walk the same,” added Lord P. “And you laugh just like her.”

Because Franny taught me to walk, and laugh, and smile. My eyes filled with tears again.

“When I said that you’d made us proud, I meant it,” said Lord P. “God knows I’m not one for this touchy-feely business, but you were the absolute light of Frances’s life. And mine. The most precious gift we could have had, and I’ll always be thankful to Rosie for giving us the chance to love you.” He blinked hard, and for a moment I thought I could see tears around his eyes. “And what you’ve done with this place…She always knew…”

I couldn’t let him get away with that. It was one thing being proud of me now, but if we were going to start dishing out home truths, I had some of my own.

“But you didn’t always think I was so precious, did you? I wasn’t good enough to be finished off!” I said. “You said the Academy wasn’t for girls like me!”

Lord P’s face crumpled as if I’d hit him. “Did you think that’s what I meant?”

“Yes!”

“That is harsh,” agreed Nell. “Oh, dear, Pelham, not well done at all.”

“And you covered up the scandal, brushed it under the carpet as if I were something to be ashamed of.” My face was getting red now. “OK, so I tried my best to make you proud of me, but didn’t you just take me in to stop the gossip getting out? Was that why you didn’t think I was good enough to go?”

“I thought you were far
too
good to go!” Lord P exploded. “You didn’t need finishing off, Betsy! Finishing off is for thick girls who can’t even get out of a car without instructions, for God’s sake!”

“Oh, thanks,” said Nell. “Touché.”

Lord P rubbed a hand over his face. “Betsy, the reason I didn’t want you going anywhere near the Academy was because I wanted there to be more in your life than just men and marriage and flower arranging. I had no idea until about an hour ago who your mother was, but I knew it was a girl who’d been let down in some way. A girl who wasn’t in charge of her own life. I didn’t want that to happen to you.”

He got up and started to pace back and forth in front of Miss Thorne’s photo gallery of grinning debutantes. “I’m not ashamed to say that I was all for closing the Academy down that year—the awful car crash and the girls and what have you. Utter,
utter
nightmare. Frances did her best to influence Coralie and Sophie in a positive way, but we weren’t their parents, most of that hell-raising went on outside term time, and Hector…How could we lay down the law when he was the worst
of the lot?” He stopped and looked me in the eye. “It was only because Frances wouldn’t let me give up on a low note that this place carried on at all. Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to her. But I made a promise that under no circumstances would I allow your future to be risked mixing with girls who didn’t care what happened to them. You were too precious, to me and to Frances.”

“That’s not what it felt like to me,” I said, hurt.

Lord P looked mortified. “I can see that now. I should have let Frances handle things, but I didn’t want you to be angry with her.”

“But that’s why I moved to Scotland! That’s why I stayed up there!” I pressed my lips together, trying not to let my emotions boil over into tears. “I’ve never thought I was good enough. I’ve spent my whole life wondering who I was, and what I was meant to be, but mainly what was so wrong with me that I wasn’t even allowed to arrange flowers with those girls.”