The Finishing Touches (5 page)

“How
rude
!” I gasped.

She looked at me before accepting the two (curling) egg-and-cress quarters and hurried off, casting glances over her shoulder as she went.

Did I imagine that? I wondered, bewildered. Did I really just fight over the sandwiches with a
caterer
?

“Have you had a cup of tea?”
he asked politely.

“One—so far.” I glared at him. “Is that also limited?”

“No, there’s plenty of tea,” he said, then paused. “If you could just stick to one glass of wine, though. And keep your glass to save on washing up, if you don’t mind.”

What sort of firm
was
this? I put my plate down and sized him up. He seemed quite posh, but then, most caterers I’d met in my attempts to cater launches for Fiona were posh bankers’ wives doing it as a hobby—maybe this was his post-Crunch career. It would explain the obsession with sandwich equity.

“I don’t know what Miss Thorne’s instructions were about catering,” I began in a friendly voice, “but I’m sure she wouldn’t want Lady Frances to be remembered as the woman who made her guests share one scone between two at her memorial tea—”

I felt a tray in the small of my back.

“Oops, sorry!” said a loud London accent. “Mark, I’ve run out. I kept moving fast, like you said, but the big one in the hat that looks like a dead seagull took all the salmon ones, said she had a dairy allergy, so what could I do? I tried to move on, but she got her mate to block me while she cleaned out the scones. This lot are like piranhas, I’m telling you. So much for posh women’s eating disorders!”

I turned round. There was a short girl with a pixie crop standing about ten centimeters away from me with another platter, containing only crumbs and parsley. “Are you after more grub?” she inquired with a disarming beam. “Only, we’ve run out of bread, and there’s no petty cash. We did the whole thing for sixty quid, mind you. But shh!” She held a finger up to her lips. “No one will notice if we just keep moving the plates round!”

“Sixty quid?” I repeated. “That’s all they paid you to cater the whole tea?”

The man looked horrified, then furious. “For God’s sake, Paulette. Is there any point telling you to keep things like that to yourself?”

But I was rummaging in my bag for my purse. I couldn’t stand it any longer. If Kathleen heard paid catering professionals carrying on like this, she’d explode right out of her corselette, memorial or no memorial, and that would spoil everything. “Here…” I handed over the forty pounds I’d earmarked for dinner with Liv that evening. “There’s a grocery shop round the corner—get the fanciest, smallest cupcakes they have, and some wine, and run back here as soon as you can.”

“There’s really no need for guests to pay for food,” the man—Mark?—began, but I stopped him.

“I’m not a guest, I’m Lady Phillimore’s
daughter
. I don’t
want anyone being told they can’t have a third sandwich. It’s not the sort of hostess she was.”

As I said it, the pair of them exchanged horrified glances, and Paulette slapped her head with her palm. Mark closed his eyes, squeezed his nose, then opened them again. He looked as if he’d hoped the room would have vanished in between.

“I’ll go, shall I?” asked Paulette.

“Yes,” I said at the same time as he did, and she grabbed my money and walked off.

“I can explain—” he began, but I shook my head. It wasn’t my job to start yelling at the caterers, but honestly—sixty pounds? What sort of budget was that? And what sort of caterers did you get for sixty quid anyway?

“Please don’t,” I said, feeling desperately sorry for Lord P. I
knew
I should have come down and done more. “Just make sure the sandwiches are circulating before the wine runs out. No crusts, filling up to the edge, please. And if you could refresh the tea, that would be great.”

I turned to go, but he coughed, embarrassed.

“I don’t suppose…” he began, then gestured at the plates. “You could give me a hand?”

“What?” Now I’d heard everything. “Are sandwiches not lesson one at catering college?”

I think he tried a smile, but it came out more like a grimace. “Probably. Only I’m not a caterer, I’m the bursar. And my lovely assistant there is no waitress, as you can tell. Paulette’s the headmistress’s assistant.” He ran a despairing hand through his thick brown hair. “Before you ask, yes, her telephone manner is just as discreet as her waitressing. She’s more of a before than after, when it comes to the Academy’s professional services.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised and a bit embarrassed at the way I’d
glared at him. Now that I looked at him properly, I realized he was younger than I’d thought, around my age, with nice brown eyes and the sort of honest, outdoorsy face you tend to see on porridge boxes. A bit rugged, and slightly cross, but honest. “Lord Phillimore didn’t get this properly catered?”

“There was some confusion, because Miss Thorne wanted to hire some old girl who plays at…who has a catering firm, but it
seems
there was a communication breakdown.” Mr. Bursar-Caterer was clearly trying not to be rude from the way his thick eyebrows kept leaping up and down behind his glasses, but he obviously hadn’t had a Phillimore training in keeping his face straight while telling social fibs. “I found out this morning that nothing had been done, so I stepped in rather than add to Lord Phillimore’s concerns on a day like this. There was only me and Paulette, and we didn’t have long, while everyone was at the service—”

“Hence the rationing,” I said, beginning to warm to him. “I see now. Sorry.”

“Well, I prefer to call it portion control.” He pushed the glasses back up his nose and gazed in confusion at the swarm of guests. His bewilderment reminded me of Lord P’s. “For a bunch of women who aren’t meant to eat, they’ve gone through this in no time. I thought we’d done
more
than enough.”

“Always make half as much again. First rule of throwing a party. Do they still teach the Party Planning course? Calculations for sandwiches per head, according to time of year, mean age of guests, whether people would abandon crab paste sandwiches after one bite, et cetera. Proper mathematical equations and everything.”

“Math? Surely not,” he said drily. “That sounds almost useful.”

I couldn’t really disagree—even at the time I’d thought it was a little bit obvious to count your guests before “instructing
your cook”—but at the same time I couldn’t stop myself from leaping to the Academy’s defense.

“Well, it
would
have been useful today, wouldn’t it? I’m sure Miss Thorne would have told you, if you’d asked,” I said.

Even as I spoke, his gaze was following a guest toward the drinks table, and when she picked up two glasses, he took an involuntary step forward.

“Whoa, there!” I grabbed his arm to stop him. “She might be taking one for a friend. Or she might be trying to escape from a party bore and is pulling the ‘I’m just on my way to give this to someone!’ trick. I learned that here.” I paused and let go of his suit sleeve. “And that
is
actually quite useful.”

He turned back to me, and the stern expression had softened into something nearing amusement, but not quite.

“You’re funny,” he said. “I think.”

“We’ve missed our proper introductions,” I said by way of distraction, seeing a gaggle of guests head toward the wine. “Let’s do it now, before it gets embarrassing. I’m Betsy.” I extended a hand to shake, and added, encouraged by his cautious smile, “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. I haven’t been back here for a good while. The last bursar I remember used to wear terrible checked sports jackets and called every woman under fifty ‘Popsy.’ Colonel Montgomery? Did you meet him?”

“In passing.” His expression stiffened. “My father.”

“Oh.” I wilted. And I’d been doing so well. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. My mother’s not keen on sports jackets much either. I’m Mark—Mark Montgomery, obviously,” he said, and as he shot out his hand, I saw silver cuff links and a crisp white cuff. “I won’t call you ‘Popsy.’ I’m a bit more enlightened, I like to think. I’m not a big believer in this sort of place, to be perfectly honest with you, but I have a good deal of time for Lord Phillimore. I drop in once a month, keep the books ticking over.”

Mark Montgomery scored highly on the handshake test, having both a firm grip and warm but dry hands.

I fell back on busy-ness to cover my embarrassment and focused on the depleted sandwiches. “Good, well, now we’ve got that sorted out, shall we do something about the food situation?” I said, wishing I didn’t sound like such a bossy boots but not being able to help myself. “I know where I can find some bread before—was it Paulette?—comes back. My godmothers live in the mews cottage—they’ve got the sort of pantry that could survive a nuclear winter.” I looked up at him hopefully. “I’m sure you’re much more expert with a bread knife that you’re letting on. If that doesn’t sound wrong?”

Mark had relaxed enough to manage a half-smile at that, but he still looked uptight around the forehead.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to stay here and supervise the distribution of what’s left? It needs a firm hand.”

I bit my tongue. That was exactly what I didn’t want. Besides, the sooner this was done, the sooner I could get out there and find Nell Howard again and see what else she could tell me.

“Well, a helper makes half a job?” Mark opened his mouth to argue, so I quickly tried a different tack. “Or you could stay here and circulate with the sandwiches? And make conversation with the old girls?”

I’d hit a nerve. He blinked rapidly, revealing surprisingly long lashes behind his bookish specs, and generally looked as if I’d just suggested he cover himself in mustard and throw himself to the lions.

“Egg and cress, or cheese?” he asked, and handed me the empty platter.

I found Kathleen and Nancy in a corner surrounded by adoring old girls, all of whom were insisting they didn’t look a day
older than sixty, which they didn’t, despite being well into their eighties.

The pair of them had taken the reverse approach to aging; instead of desperately clinging to thirty-two while the tides of time swept them into their forties, they’d plumped for looking fifty-three from the age of thirty and had stuck there. In Kathleen’s case, regular applications of Nice ’n Easy kept her hair a startling jet-black and regular partaking of brown ale and Lancashire stew kept her skin unlined, whereas Nancy’s birdlike nerves maintained her tiny pepper-grinder frame. They looked the same to me now as they had throughout my childhood, and in turn, they liked to think I was still twelve.

“Betsy! There you are! What have you done to your hair?” said Kathleen, right on cue, when I approached. “Where are those pretty curls? Have you been ironing your hair again?”

Kathleen thought I was making hair straighteners up. She couldn’t believe anyone could be so stupid.

“Where’ve you been?” demanded Nancy, smacking a kiss onto my cheek even though she had to reach up. “You read so beautifully. Everyone said you were the best. We were proud as punch, weren’t we, Kathleen?”

“We were.” Kathleen nodded. “And Frances would have been very proud of you. I said to Fenella Rickett, our little Betsy’s running her own management company up in Edinburgh, all on her—”

“Um, listen, can I ask you two for some help?” I interrupted hurriedly. I didn’t want to get into the whole “management company” misunderstanding just yet. “They’ve run out of sandwiches.”

“I knew it!” said Kathleen triumphantly. She seemed almost pleased. “I said Geraldine Thorne wouldn’t order enough. Right, then—we’d better crack on, hadn’t we?”

She was more than happy to rush me into her walk-in lar
der of delights as an excuse to interrogate me about my eating habits, and in fifteen minutes Mark Montgomery and I were marching up the garden path with enough sandwiches to choke an elephant, just in time to meet Paulette returning with twelve boxes of after-dinner mints.

“On sale,” she said, pouring my change into the pocket on my dress. “Better value than cupcakes, I reckoned. And no need to ration them out!”

“Oh, well, on that basis, why didn’t you just get cornflakes—” Mark began, but I leaped in. There was no point having a row now.

“What an unusual idea!” I said quickly. “Take them round with coffee, Paulette, and make sure everyone gets
as many as they want
. Ah, now here’s a man who needs some refreshment!” I said, seeing Lord P back away with some difficulty from a little knot of guests. They were all patting him like a sick dog. “Sandwich?”

“Oh, marvelous!” he said gratefully. “Sandwiches, yes.”

Lord P looked as if he’d just spent seven hours trapped in a lift with the entire Women’s Institute of Great Britain. His hair was ruffled, and he was definitely wearing his spectacles. In fact, I’d never seen such an emphatically worn pair of specs.

“No crusts,” he said rather wistfully. “And cucumber too. Frances’s favorite.” He looked over at me and Mark and managed a weak smile. “Jolly good show, cucumber. Can’t beat it. Enough to go round, I hope?”

“Everything’s under control, foodwise,” said Mark. “So long as people don’t—”

I kicked him discreetly.

“We’re fine,” he finished.

“Splendid,” said Lord P with visible relief. “Good. Betsy, could I have a quiet word? In the library?” I wondered if he
realized he had pearly pink lipstick on his cheek. Two different shades.

“Of course,” I said, handing my teetering platter to Mark, who promptly swept it out of the way of some poor guest’s ambitious reach.

I let Lord P usher me down the corridor to the quiet rooms at the back of the house and tried not to look too obviously at the walls for the missing photograph of the class of 1980.

In his youth, Pelham Phillimore had been a dead ringer for Roger Moore: piercing blue eyes and thick dark hair, but with tweed jackets, not safari suits. Like Franny, he had the sort of aristocratic good looks that age just turns into silvery elegance, and throughout our adolescence Liv claimed she had a real older man crush on his “brooding silences” and impeccable manners.

I’d always thought of Lord P as handsome, but today, I noted sadly, he looked handsome
for his age
. There were bags under his eyes and shadows where I’d never seen them before. Still, his shoes shone like glass. That was something.

He waved me into the library, then leaned on the door for a split second, his shoulders dropping with sheer relief to be away from the noisy chatter of the hall.