The Last Dance of the Debutante, page 3
“Oh! I’m very sorry!” she cried, hoping the other girl hadn’t been holding any sort of refreshment. When she looked up, she realized she’d almost upset Katherine Norman.
“Not at all. It’s Lily Nicholls, isn’t it?” asked Katherine with a wide, open smile that lit up her heart-shaped face.
“That’s right.”
Katherine laughed. “Of course. You did my dress in Twelfth Night. It was midnight blue with spangled net overlay and far more gorgeous than any school play costume had a right to be.”
She smiled, pleased the other woman remembered something as simple as a costume for a school play.
“How was your curtsy?” Lily asked.
Katherine exhaled as she smoothed her hands over her simple but elegant white organza dress decorated with wide white stripes. “Solid and without wobble, I’m happy to say, although I’ll admit my embarrassment over how nervous I was.”
“I think we all were,” she said.
“There you are, Lily!”
Lily gave a little jump to find Leana had glided up next to her.
“You were so quick you escaped from me. I’ve decided you’re the most interesting person here, and I can’t be without you. Now, come with me. We’ll have a chat and compare notes,” said Leana, looping her hand through Lily’s arm and casting a tight smile back at Katherine. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Katherine, watching with what Lily suspected was amusement, swept her hand out in front of her. “Please do.”
Lily opened her mouth to introduce the two, when Leana spun on her heel, dragging Lily in a large circle along with her.
“I’m so glad I was there to save you,” whispered Leana.
“Save me?”
“From Katherine Norman. Now, tell me all about it. Did you stumble? I’m sure you didn’t. You look so calm and collected.”
“Not even a wobble,” she said, glancing back at Katherine, who was already speaking to a tall, redheaded girl who had stepped into Lily’s spot.
“Neither did I, although the Duke of Edinburgh did wink at me,” said Leana.
Lily glanced at the other girl. “Did he?”
Leana tossed her black hair back and grinned as though to say, “Of course he did.” And why wouldn’t he? Leana’s was a breathtaking kind of beauty, and—while the other girls seemed to chatter and flitter around each other like nervous butterflies—she held herself with a worldly-wise sophistication.
“Now, we have something very serious to discuss. You must come to my deb’s luncheon Friday,” said Leana.
“That would be lovely, thank you. I’ll just need to check my diary. I’m afraid to do anything without looking at it first,” she said.
“I’m sure you’re invited everywhere,” said Leana.
“No, not at all, but I do have a few friends from school, and I’ve been to two luncheons with my cousin, Georgie Laningham, already.”
“Georgie Laningham,” Leana mused. “I shall send her an invitation as well, if you’d like.”
“Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said, even though Georgie, who was far better at keeping up with the debs in the Tatler and The Sketch, would be delighted.
“I’ll tell my mother to send the invitations. She knows everyone who is worth knowing, so we’ve invited all of the girls you would want to meet during the Season. It means I can avoid all of the other ghastly teas and luncheons so far, except my own,” said Leana.
Lily frowned. The luncheons were engineered to allow the girls to mix before the Season really started. Armed with address books, they would eat coronation chicken and then circulate around some drawing room or another, writing down each other’s names and addresses in the hopes that an invitation would follow.
“Most of the girls who will be at my luncheon are being presented to the Queen tomorrow, and I thought I would have no one to talk to today, but then I met you.
“Anyway, you will come Friday, won’t you?” Leana’s brilliant smile transforming into a pretty pout as she asked.
“As long as I’m free,” Lily said, a little overwhelmed at Leana’s insistence. “I really do have to look. Oh, here’s Mummy. She should have her diary with her. We can ask her.”
“There you are,” said Mummy as she rushed up. “I’ve been looking for you. How did it go?”
“Just as I hoped it would. The Queen was there, and so was the Duke of Edinburgh. Princess Margaret, too,” she said.
Mummy gripped her hand. “Did the Queen nod at you? Smile? Your grandmother will ask.”
“I don’t know. I kept my eyes lowered,” she said.
“Lily did very well,” interjected Leana.
Her mother’s shoulders bunched up, and Lily watched her recompose her face into something resembling a calm mask before turning to say, “I see you’ve made a friend.”
“Oh, Mummy, this is Leana,” said Lily.
Mummy’s lips parted. “Leana…?”
“We sat next to each other while we were waiting to be presented,” she continued.
“Lily is going to come to my deb’s luncheon on Friday,” said Leana.
She laughed. “If I’m not due anywhere else that day.”
“How could you want to go to any other party?” asked Leana, touching her hand to her chest in mock horror. “But I suppose you’re bound to meet all sorts of people at luncheons and the first parties, and you’ll be flooded with invitations. Then you won’t have a free moment for me.”
“I’m sorry, my dear. What did you say your surname was?” Mummy asked.
“Hartford.” The new voice cut through the hum of the reception. “But I expect you knew that already. Hello, Josephine.”
Lily peered over her mother’s shoulder at the statuesque woman with rich dark hair swept up and back into a tight twist who had spoken. A strand of large, antique ivory pearls lay against her cream-white skin, set off by the rich cobalt and gold of her jacquard dress and matching jacket. The woman looked utterly at ease in the palace’s State Rooms, as though she had no doubt about her right to be there.
“Ruth,” Mummy murmured, her Elizabeth Arden lips standing out against skin paled by shock.
Lily didn’t know what it was about this finely dressed woman, but instinct had her slipping her hand into Mummy’s and squeezing it tight.
“I didn’t know that Leana had made your daughter’s acquaintance,” said Mrs. Hartford.
Lily felt her mother’s grip tense in hers, and for a moment, she thought Mummy might bolt. Instead, Mummy straightened and said, “It certainly wasn’t with my encouragement.”
Lily blinked. Although she may have almost entirely retreated from society after returning to England at the end of the war, Mummy was still very much a product of her upbringing. Who was this woman that her mother—governed always by manners and breeding—couldn’t hold back such rudeness?
“Hello, Mother,” said Leana, one hand on her hip and a hint of insolence in her smile. “My curtsy was a great success, if you wanted to know. Prince Philip winked at me.”
If Mrs. Hartford heard her daughter, she did a good job of hiding it. Instead, her eyes narrowed.
“It really is for the best that they’re ending the presentations this year. They really do let anyone in these days,” said Mrs. Hartford before raking her gaze over Lily from the top of her ivory hat to the tip of her heeled shoe.
The insult—the mirror of the one her daughter had muttered not an hour before—smacked Lily square in the chest, but before she could say anything, Mummy tugged on Lily’s hand. “We really must go.”
“You won’t forget about the luncheon?” asked Leana. “I’ll send you a note with the direction.”
“Lily,” hissed Mummy.
“I’m sorry!” Lily managed as her mother began to pull her away.
They drew a few looks as Mummy surged forward through the wall of pastel-clad debs and their chaperones.
“Mummy,” she protested, “there are so many girls I’m meant to say hello to. I haven’t had a chance to speak to Philippa Groves, and she’s already invited me to her drinks.”
“You can say hello to your school friends another time,” said Mummy, her voice harder than Lily had heard it in ages. Grandmama was the stern one. Mummy was… weaker, more prone to long bouts spent locked in her bedroom or holed up with Aunt Angelica, who seemed like the only one who could coax a laugh out of her mother some weeks.
Lily nodded and smiled tightly at whomever looked as though they might step into their path. At the door to the State Rooms, a liveried servant showed them the way down the hall, the opulence of the royal palace rushing by as Mummy hurried the two of them along. Lily wanted desperately to stop for just a moment and take it all in—she’d never have a chance at another presentation, after all—but it wasn’t until they stood outside the palace with a page hurrying to hail them a cab that she was finally able to shake her mother’s hand away.
“Mummy, what were you doing? The entire point of the reception is to meet the other girls,” she said, rubbing at the bones in her hand that ached from her mother’s grip.
“Not if you’re going to associate with girls like Leana Hartford,” said Mummy.
“I would have thought you would be thrilled that I’d met Leana. She’s ever so popular. Everyone thinks she might be named Deb of the Year.”
“That family is not worth knowing,” said Mummy.
“Isn’t Mr. Hartford a politician or a diplomat?”
Mummy whirled around, hands clenched as though trying to hold back a wave of rage. “I do not want you speaking with her. I don’t know why you sat next to her in the first place.”
Years of managing Mummy’s moods told Lily that she shouldn’t push, but she just couldn’t understand what she’d done wrong. Not after all she’d been told these last months was that her connections would make her Season.
“I didn’t choose to sit next to Leana,” she said. “I took one chair, she took another. I tried to speak to the girl on my other side first, but she was shaking so badly I’m surprised she was able to walk at all. I know Leana seems rather grand, but I think she is more generous than she pretends to be,” she said.
A taxi rolled to a stop in front of them. Mummy hardly waited until the attendant opened the door before diving into the back seat. Lily slid in, her skirts puffing up around her from the layers of net that made up her petticoats.
It was silent in the taxi until they had crossed Eaton Square. Then Mummy rolled up her black net veil and sighed. “I know that you are only trying to do what you think is right. Normally, I would agree with you: you should meet as many girls as you can. The handful of invitations you have is a good start, but it isn’t enough. However, you need to be careful.”
She wanted to ask why, when Leana’s name was on the lips of every deb at the last luncheon she’d gone to, but the hardness in Mummy’s eyes made her hold back.
“Now, your grandmother telephoned this morning insisting that we call on her as soon as we left the palace. You can tell her everything,” said Mummy.
Lily settled back against the taxi’s black leather seat. Mummy might hold old prejudices against the Hartfords, but Grandmama, despite her age, was a more social creature. Surely, Grandmama would understand the importance of accepting Leana’s invitation.
* * *
“Were you a success?” It was the first question Grandmama asked as soon as they entered the drawing room at Cadogan Place.
Lily, exhausted from the tension of the taxi ride from Buckingham Palace and the stress of the presentation itself, wanted to throw herself down onto the sofa. Instead, she perched on the edge of it, as Grandmama had insisted she do since she was twelve.
“Lily performed very well by all accounts,” said Mummy, tiredness edging her voice.
“Lily?” Grandmama prompted.
“I didn’t fall over or put my heel through my dress or sneeze in the middle of my curtsy or any other disasters,” she teased.
“Be serious, Lillian,” chided Grandmama.
She fought the urge to grin at her grandmother’s irritation. “It was all exactly as it should have been. Even Madame Vacani would have been proud of my curtsy.”
“Very good.” But then Grandmama looked between the two of them. “What is the matter?”
“Nothing is the matter,” said Mummy automatically.
“I was not expecting you until at least an hour from now,” said Grandmama, looking between the two of them with a raised brow.
A pause stretched to the point of awkwardness.
“The reception after presentations is an important part of the day. You shouldn’t discount any opportunities you have to meet other debutantes, Lillian,” Grandmama continued.
Lily hadn’t though it was possible for Mummy to shrink down any further into her hunched shoulders.
“I wasn’t feeling my best,” said Lily quickly.
Grandmama narrowed her eyes but then nodded. “Have any further invitations come in?”
“One came this morning from Madeline Cargrew. Her cocktail party will be on the second of May,” she said, rattling off the invitation’s details from memory. That one was easy to remember because Mummy had gasped when she saw the invitation card was merely printed and not engraved.
“Perhaps Georgie can ask if you can come along to some of her luncheons,” said Mummy.
The cheek of Mummy to suggest that she rely on her cousin’s charity while she had a perfectly good promise of an invitation from Leana Hartford. Leana, who, by the very nature of her prominence as a possible Deb of the Year, was invited everywhere and was known by everyone.
“What about Leana Hartford’s invitation?” Lily asked brightly.
“You met Leana Hartford?” asked Grandmama with interest.
“No. I do not want Lily associating with the Hartfords,” said Mummy.
“But why?” Lily pressed. “Why shouldn’t I go to Leana’s luncheon, when you know that it is bound to have some of the most well-connected girls? You’ve both said that it’s important who I meet this Season.”
She knew that the argument would cut to her advantage.
“Lily, I do not want to speak about this any longer,” said Mummy, her voice shaking.
“But why?” she pressed.
“Your mother and Michael were very good friends with the Hartfords before the war,” said Grandmama.
“And they showed me just how little they cared for that friendship after my husband died,” said Mummy.
“You’re being unreasonable, Josephine,” said Grandmama.
“What happened?” asked Lily.
Mummy clamped her lips shut, even as Grandmama made an exasperated noise. “You can at least tell the girl so she understands.”
Mummy gave a tight nod. “Just after war was declared in 1939, Michael and I sent Joanna to Washington, DC, to keep her safe. Many people were evacuating their children then. But she fell ill, and I went over to nurse her. I knew that it was a risk because U-boats were already firing on passenger ships, but my daughter needed me.”
“A foolish thing for a pregnant woman to do,” said Grandmama with a sniff.
Mummy took a deep breath but pushed past the censure. “I gave birth to you, Joanna recovered, and we were ready to return. I had asked Ethan Hartford to use his diplomatic influence to secure me passage to America, but he refused to help me on the return journey. I learned later that he knew Michael was ill with stomach cancer. He kept that from me and did not help me in a time of need. I cannot forgive him for that.”
“None of us knew about the cancer,” said Grandmama, her voice losing some of its usual frost. “Michael never wanted any of us to worry.”
Lily reached across the gap between their chairs and laid a soft hand on Mummy’s arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Mummy lifted a hand as though to cover Lily’s with her own, but then she hesitated before shifting out of Lily’s grasp.
Silence stretched out in the room until Grandmama straightened and declared, “I shall ring for tea, and then I wish to hear every detail of your presentation, Lily.”
Lily bit her lip and nodded, trying not to let the sting of her mother’s rejection bury its way too deep into her heart.
Three
The silence among the Nicholls women over Leana Hartford seemed to hang heavy amid the quiet corridors of the house at 17 Harley Gardens, pressing down on Lily from the moment they’d stepped through the front door to the late hour when she’d closed her book and announced she was going to bed. She’d forsaken the warmth of the sitting room’s coal fire for the electric fire in her bedroom earlier than usual because cold was better than disappointment any evening.
When Lily woke the following morning, she’d hoped that all would be forgotten. She came down to the morning room for breakfast and found a little pile of her post beside her place setting. On top was a small, buff-colored envelope with her address written in blue ink in an elegant hand.
“Good morning, Mummy,” she said, picking up the top envelope.
“Is that what you’re wearing to Georgie’s luncheon?” her mother asked, sweeping her eye over Lily.
Lily looked down at the two-year-old robin’s-egg-blue dress she’d cinched at the waist with a black leather belt. She was proud of this dress, having tailored it just so, but apparently it would not do for meeting other debs. She quickly ran through her wardrobe before saying, “I have a few errands to run, and then I thought I would change into my rose-colored wool dress with the dark pink piping.”
“That is a pretty dress. Where will you go this morning?” asked Mummy, neatening the cuffs of her ebony cardigan that she wore buttoned to the top with a large jade brooch pinned over her heart.
“Peter Jones,” she said, naming the Sloane Square department store. “I need another two pairs of stockings and some fabric for a blouse I’m making.”
Mummy looked at Lily, head tilted gently as she studied her. Finally, she said, “I was thinking, I know how much you enjoy making your own dresses. I don’t see any harm in making some of your cocktail dresses.”
