The Proposal (19 page)

‘Look at that,’ said Georgia gleefully, pointing at the mannequins. ‘They look like beauties on their way to one of Gatsby’s Great Egg parties.’

The car continued downtown all the way to 24th Street and back on to the lower reaches of Madison Avenue.

‘Here we are,’ said Georgia briskly, getting out of the car.

‘Eleven Madison Park. I don’t know this place. What is it? A hotel?’

‘Further education,’ smiled Georgia.

They went inside, off the cold street, where Georgia asked to speak to Clive.

Amy’s eyes were fixed on the glamorous and powerful clientele. Growing up in New York, she had often walked past these fancy places – restaurants with French names, or names carved in tiny letters, as if you were simply expected to know what they were; famous restaurants, bistros that you read about in Page Six, restaurants that appeared on magazine hot lists and Michelin lists – but she had never been inside one. She wished she was wearing the Ralph Lauren little black dress that was in the stiff cardboard bag in her hand, but she realised that she had an even better accessory by her side – Georgia, whose presence gave her a quiet reassurance that she had never felt when she went to these sort of places in London with Daniel.

‘Who’s Clive?’ she whispered.

‘An old friend who worked in Claridge’s for many years. Ah – here he is now.’

A fifty-something gentleman in a beautifully cut suit extended his hand towards Georgia, who seemed to soften in his presence.

‘It’s so good to see you again,’ she said warmly as they shook hands.

‘It has been far too long, Miss Hamilton.’

‘Well, I finally made it. I suppose asking you to call me Georgia after so long would be futile?’

They all laughed, and Georgia introduced Clive to Amy before they were led upstairs away from the main dining area.

Amy had assumed they were here to eat, but perhaps not.

‘Here we go. The South Room,’ said Clive, ushering them into a small, elegant dining space on a mezzanine floor over the restaurant.

‘Look at this place,’ said Amy, gazing out through the long windows on to Madison Square Park. ‘Are we the only people here?’

‘This is one of our private dining rooms,’ explained Clive, handing her a menu.

‘I thought we could kill two birds with one stone. We get to sample some exceptional cuisine, and I can help you with this.’

‘With what?’

‘This,’ said Georgia, gesturing towards the table, formally set as if for a banquet for two.

Amy’s eyes opened wide. ‘Now? We’re going to talk about bread rolls and stuff now?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, it’s just that I’m not sure I’ll be able to remember it all. I haven’t got a notebook or anything. I mean, I’d write it all on the back of a napkin if they weren’t made out of linen.’

Georgia patted her hand.

‘Relax, my dear. The point of this exercise is not to make you an expert, rather to make you comfortable being in this environment. And to learn that not everything is important.’

‘Okay. I’ll try.’

‘So, food is served from the left,’ said Clive, bending to place a small plate in front of her. He stepped around her and picked it up from the other side. ‘And cleared from the right.’

‘The idea was to prevent the servants crashing into each other,’ said Georgia. ‘And that’s why drinks are always served from the right.’

‘I’ll remember that for the pub,’ grinned Amy, but Georgia gave her a stern look.

‘Do you want to take this seriously?’

‘Sorry,’ she said, holding up a hand. ‘I’m just a bit nervous. And confused. I mean, I’ve been a waitress for a while now, and no one at the Forge ever told me there was a right way to serve.’

‘What do you know about wine glasses?’ asked Georgia, already moving on.

‘Without them, we’d be swigging out of the bottle like a hobo?’

Another stern look.

‘Okay, okay, I know the answer to this one,’ said Amy quickly, not wanting another reprimand. ‘Red wine goes in the big one. White wine in the smaller one, although if it was down to me, I’d take the big one every time and fill it up all the way.’

‘And don’t forget the biggest glass is for your water,’ said Georgia, pointing to the herd of glasses that Clive had arranged on the table.

‘You’re our advanced glassware class, Clive. What can you tell us?’ said Georgia with the hint of a smile.

Clive placed two glasses of champagne in front of Georgia and Amy, each receptacle a different shape. He explained that one was a flute, the other a saucer – the shape of the latter apparently modelled on Marie Antoinette’s right breast.

‘But which one is better for champagne?’ asked Amy,

‘Well, the saucer looks prettier,’ smiled Georgia. ‘But the flute has less surface area, so the champagne retains the bubbles longer. Personally I never like to leave it in the glass that long.’

Next she was introduced to a magnum glass, apparently reserved for particularly aromatic Burgundy and usually only filled halfway to allow the bouquet to collect inside the glass.

‘So how is a Burgundy different from other sorts of wine?’ she asked. It was the sort of question she’d never have asked Daniel even in the privacy of her own home, let alone at one of the smart dinner parties he occasionally took her to. But even after this short time she felt comfortable asking Georgia and Clive anything; the fact that she barely knew the pair of them somehow made it easier.

‘Burgundy is simply the region of France the wine comes from,’ explained Clive. ‘It’s a highly respected wine-growing area – you’ve probably heard of Chablis – and produces many of the top wines in the world. But it’s most famous for its reds – like this one. Full-bodied, smooth, aromatic . . .’ He poured a little of the wine and asked her what she could smell.

Tentatively Amy picked up the big glass and pushed her nose inside, inhaling. It was wonderful: sweet, fruity and rich, like a basket of freshly picked berries. She looked up at Clive, wondering what she should say.

‘Cherries,’ she said hesitantly, unsure whether this was the right answer.

‘Very good,’ he said, his eyes twinkling. ‘I can smell cherries, and chocolate too.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ grinned Amy, taking a long, delicious sip.

Clive walked away to get their starters, their little wine appreciation session over.

‘Wow – my folks at home aren’t going to recognise me when they bring out the cheap stuff and I stick my nose in it.’

‘Price isn’t always an indicator of quality. I’ve taken a great ten-pound bottle of wine to many dinner parties. Because it’s good and I like it and I want to share it with my friends. Have faith in what you like. Have courage in who you are and your opinions. It doesn’t matter if you can smell cherries or chocolate or chalk dust so long as you believe what you say and you are respectful of what other people believe.’

‘Even if it’s wrong?’

‘And how do you define wrong? Why should your opinion be any less valid than the next person just because they have more money in the bank or have studied at all the right places?’

Clive brought over three successively delicious courses, during which Georgia explained the intricacies of modern table manners. Apparently bread rolls were always broken, never cut with a knife; soup bowls were gently tipped away from you. Napkins were placed on laps, salt and pepper added after food had been tasted. Plates were never pushed to one side, elbows were kept off the table no matter how strange this might at first feel, although a light lean was allowed if there was no food present. Fidgeting was not elegant. Smiling apparently was.

‘Will you come?’ said Amy quietly.

‘Come where?’

She looked into Georgia’s tired grey eyes and thought of her ordering room service and a bottle of good Burgundy at the hotel the following evening. No one deserved to be alone at Christmas, even if they believed that was what they wanted.

‘To my house. In Queens.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s your family time.’

‘I want you to come and I think you’d enjoy it. No one there knows a Beaujolais from a Budweiser, but my mom does these great butterscotch carrots that have just got your name on them.’

‘In which case, we had better brief Alfonse.’ And Amy swore she could see Georgia’s eyes sparkle.

May 1958

‘I’m so glad you agreed to come,’ grinned Sally Daly as they passed through the gates of Giles House on the outskirts of a picturesque village near Wytham Woods in Oxfordshire.

The debutante parties and dances had moved into the countryside, and Georgia clutched the little cream suitcase on her lap tightly as the two girls arrived at their destination.

‘We’ll have a great time,’ she said, smiling as brightly as possible, though her heart was sinking at the thought of spending the next twelve hours in the house ahead of her. But she had made a promise to herself and to her mother that she would throw herself wholeheartedly into the Season. After all, what was it someone had said to her recently? That if she resisted life less, she might enjoy it more.

So she’d had a makeover at the cosmetics counter at Debenham & Freebody and had her hair trimmed into a neat and stylish crop, which somehow made it look more blond. She had been to the polo at Cowdray Park, the horse trials at Badminton, throwing herself into the Season with such aplomb that she even had Sybil smiling.

Tonight’s festivities were being hosted by one Mr and Mrs Charles Fortescue for their daughter Judy, a tall, red-haired debutante who was part of a rather cliquey and competitive set who loved horses. According to Sally, who seemed to know every deb on the circuit and was plugged into all the gossip, tonight was not a dance, but a house party, with almost sixty guests staying at the property overnight. Deb’s delights were apparently being shipped in from the university, and from the agricultural college at Cirencester, and hopes were high for meaningful encounters, even though the men would apparently all be leaving at midnight.

Georgia had painted her toenails, waxed her legs, and cleared up a blemish with a face mask. Perhaps if she found her husband-to-be sooner rather than later, she would save herself from having to go to more parties like this one.

As the taxi made its way up the long drive, she took a moment to observe the Fortescue property, which was large if a little faded around the edges. The past few weeks had been quite wet ones, but tonight was a clear and warm evening, and as the sun dipped behind the line of trees, it sent streamers of golden light across the grounds.

At the front door, the girls were met by a stern-looking housekeeper dressed in black.

‘You’re late,’ she said, not even bothering to look at them directly.

‘We caught a different train from the one we were supposed to.’

‘They are all outside playing croquet. Drinks are being served any minute on the terrace. You should go to your rooms and unpack, but you had better be quick.’

Outside, Georgia glimpsed at least seventy people in the garden. Tables groaned under the weight of jugs of Pimm’s and silver bowls of strawberries.

‘I assume you are Georgia Hamilton and Sally Daly,’ said the housekeeper, running her finger down a clipboard. ‘You’re the only ones not accounted for.’

They both nodded.

‘Follow me. I’ll show you to your rooms.’

The girls trailed behind her through the house, past a boot room where two enormous elephant’s feet now stored umbrellas, and up a flight of stairs.

Sally was in a single room that overlooked the back garden.

‘Goody, a room to myself,’ she cheered.

‘You are upstairs,’ said the housekeeper to Georgia as they headed towards the attics, the house getting progressively more dark. Many of the bedroom doors were open, and she peered inside at camp beds and mattresses covering every floor. It looked more like an army barracks than a family home.

Finally she was led into a small room in the eaves. There was a single bed and two camp beds squashed in, which left barely enough room to swing a cat.

Despite the snobbish whispers she still heard about Sally – that her mother was on her third nose job, and how the Rolls-Royce that dropped her off at parties was definitely
de trop
– it was no surprise that she had been allocated the good room, whilst Georgia was banished to Siberia. Sally spent her days inviting impoverished aristos to the Dalys’ house in Biarritz; Georgia had to dodge questions about why she wasn’t having her own dance.

Shimmering into a pale green silk dress, she pinned a white gardenia she had picked from the grounds on the lapel, which disguised the smell of cigarette smoke she had picked up from the train. On her way downstairs she dropped into Sally’s room but her friend had already gone, and even before she reached the ground floor she could hear the arrival of the first of the buses that were shipping the Cirencester boys from the village pub where they were staying.

‘Come along, come along,’ said a man with a magnificent moustache. She assumed this must be Judy’s father. ‘Grab a bevvy and then into the barn.’

‘I knew this was going to be a great party,’ giggled Sally, clutching a glass of orange squash. ‘Have you seen how dishy those Cirencester boys are? Thighs on them like sycamores.’