Debutantes (8 page)

‘She won’t be coming to stay, Great-Aunt,’ she said reassuringly. ‘She’s bound to have booked her passage on the boat. She probably got a present for Violet after she received the photograph and she didn’t have time to post it. Sir Guy will be here to keep father company, and Morgan’s brought in a huge amount of wood for the fires downstairs and in the ballroom. And everything looks nice by candlelight.’ And all the shabbiness and the cobwebs are hidden, she added silently.

‘I must finish the dresses.’ Violet sprinted out of the room and ran lightly up the stairs, singing the latest Bessie Smith song.

‘I must reply.’ Great-Aunt Lizzie made a visible effort to pull herself together.

‘Oh please, let me do it,’ begged Rose. ‘I know just what to say: COME STOP EAT STOP BUT DON’T STOP STOP.’

‘Rose, there’s Justin with a load of wood; ask him if he could possibly bring it up to the ballroom,’ said Daisy hurriedly. Justin had been getting a bit of exercise helping Morgan to chop wood and had arrived each morning carrying an axe as well as a fishing rod. He had turned out to be rather fun, entering into all the plans for the party – only turning stiff and pompous when Violet tried to be the grand lady. Daisy liked him more and more each day. Now she gave him a quick wave through the window and then turned to the elderly woman. ‘Her Grace won’t stay the night, I’m sure she won’t, but it might work out very well for her to visit here. You know what Violet is like when she’s excited and in a good mood. And she’ll be wearing that gorgeous dress. She’ll look beautiful. I’m sure that the Duchess will offer to present her when she sees her. This room is lovely at night.’ Pity about the torn curtains, she thought, and said hastily, ‘Luckily we have all those candles that Maud found in the basement. I always think that candle flames look awfully nice reflected on dark glass.’

‘That’s your artistic nature, Daisy,’ said the old lady graciously. She had begun to recover. ‘Bring me a pencil and some paper and I’ll draft a telegram. Is the boy still in the kitchen?’

‘I told him to wait,’ said Daisy. Morgan could fetch the Duchess and then return her to the station for the next train, she decided. Mrs Beaton had made a splendid cake. Violet and her three sisters would all be dressed in party clothes. There would be hot fires and artistic arrangements of candles and leaves everywhere. Her eye went to the windowsills – some holly from the woodland, she thought, visualizing pinpricks of light reflected on polished green leaves.

Sir Guy Beresford arrived at Beech Grove Manor at five o’clock. As usual he was impeccably dressed and as usual he came with a parcel in his hands. He had got into the film industry about fourteen years earlier and it had made him very rich. With no children of his own he tended to spoil Daisy, his goddaughter, and he seldom arrived without some present for her.

Morgan drove him to the door and Daisy, who had been watching from an upstairs window, came flying down to meet him.

‘How’s my very favourite godfather?’ she asked as the bulky figure struggled out of the back of the Humber, leaning heavily on Morgan’s outstretched arm.

‘You’ve only got one,’ grunted Sir Guy. ‘You want something out of me, Daisy; don’t think I don’t know what you’re like.’ His arms enveloped her in a bear-like hug and she hugged him back.

‘Come up to your bedroom,’ she said, tugging at his arm as they went into the house. ‘Bateman will say that you’re having tea upstairs. Here’s Father. Great-Aunt Lizzie says that he can’t take the dogs through the woods in case the Duchess arrives early. She’s fussing terribly about the party.’

‘Am I the first? Hallo, Michael!’ said Sir Guy, delving into his pocket and handing a small, flat, wrapped box to Daisy. ‘What’s this about a duchess?’

‘Some of this nonsense about Violet being presented,’ grunted the Earl. ‘How are you, Guy? Looking forward to a chinwag with you – got a drag hunt coming up in a few days if you care to stay on for that.’ He was always in a good humour when Sir Guy arrived and a drag hunt was his favourite form of amusement.

‘Excuse me, my lord.’ Bateman approached. ‘Morgan wishes to know if you need the car at the moment, or if he may –’ Bateman coughed – ‘attend to his duties upstairs until we hear about the Duchess’s train.’

Daisy smothered a giggle. Bateman sounded as though playing the drums was some obscure form of chauffeuring.

‘No, tell him to carry on,’ said the Earl, sounding a little more cheerful. ‘What do you think about that, Guy? My chauffeur has a jazz band. Sign of the times, eh? Jolly good they are too.’ He liked Morgan and was amused at the idea that his chauffeur had formed a jazz band from the neighbouring young people and one of his daughters. ‘They’ve been practising for most of the afternoon,’ he added. ‘You should hear Poppy play that clarinet. You’d think she was a professional.’ Poppy, in her father’s eyes, could do no wrong.

Daisy unpeeled the wrapping from the box – probably sweets, she thought. Although Sir Guy showered her with presents, he generally treated her as though she was about eight years old.

But there was an inner wrapping. And this time it was an expensive-looking embossed paper with a silver sheen. Daisy took that off more carefully and then opened the lid of the box and there, coiled on a bed of pale pink velvet, was a rope of shimmering pearls.

‘Your father said that you were all getting dressed up for Violet’s party,’ grunted Sir Guy.

For a moment Daisy said nothing. The pearls were exquisite – and the string was very, very long. They would be just perfect with her short pink silk dress. There was a picture of someone wearing a rope of pearls just like that in one of Violet’s magazines. She flung her arms around Sir Guy and kissed his wrinkled old cheek.

‘I’ll never be able to thank you enough.’

‘Very generous of you, Guy, old man,’ said the Earl. He had a look of regret on his face and Daisy guessed that he was thinking of Violet. She should have been the first to have pearls. If only he had not put so much of his money in that unlucky diamond mine in India. Daisy could see from the way his face darkened and the lines around his mouth tightened that he was thinking of that unlucky investment.

‘Better get back in the library,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Aunt Lizzie is like a cat on hot bricks. We’ve had a telegram from Violet’s godmother, the Duchess of Denton. She’s on her way to France, but she will stop off to give Violet her birthday present. Lizzie, of course, has got it into her head that if everything goes well the Duchess will take up Violet and present her at court or something like that. Stupid idea – can’t stand the woman.’

‘Excuse me, my lord.’ Bateman had appeared again. ‘That was the stationmaster on the phone. He says that the London train left on time and we should expect Her Grace to be at the village station in just over an hour.’

‘Better have a quick brandy before she descends on us.’ The Earl shot back into the library and Daisy grabbed Sir Guy’s sleeve.

‘Quick,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and hide, or else Great-Aunt Lizzie will think that you should be standing around ready to be polite to the Duchess a good hour before she arrives.’

She took him upstairs and into the blue bedroom. She had been in and out of this room during the afternoon and everything was ready. The fire was burning well, she noticed and on a small table beside the comfortable old armchair she had placed a decanter with some of her father’s favourite brandy in it. She took her godfather’s coat from him and hung it up in the wardrobe and watched solicitously as he sank into the chair. He was looking quite tired, she thought, as he gave a sigh of relief. Her father had been talking about how ridiculous it was for a wealthy man like Sir Guy to be working so hard at the film industry, but Daisy understood that fascination. It wasn’t just a matter of making money, she guessed. He was part of a new and fascinating world – the world of the cinema – and she envied him.

‘Have a drink while you’re waiting for your tea,’ she said, pouring the brandy carefully. ‘I’ll pop down and get it.’

The jazz band was playing loudly and vigorously, the music almost seeming to rock the old house, as Daisy ran down the back staircase. No chance of meeting the Duchess or Great-Aunt Lizzie on this uncarpeted realm of the servants. The tray had been prepared by her earlier on – all of Sir Guy’s favourites were on it, including Marmite sandwiches made from thinly cut bread: lots of butter and a faint skim of Marmite spread over the top.

‘I see you are all ready for me.’ Sir Guy was sipping his brandy when she returned. He had a grin on his face as he pointed to the screen that Morgan had made for her which now hung between the door and the wardrobe, and the projector standing on the bedside table.

‘It’s very short – only five minutes,’ said Daisy firmly. ‘It will give you something to do while you are drinking your tea and eating your sandwiches. I cut the bread myself so it’s just the way you like it.’

Quickly she drew the curtains and then turned off the overhead lamp, leaving just the small lamp behind his chair. That would give him light enough to eat by.

It was Violet who was the making of the film, she thought as she watched it critically. The story was sweet and the horses were great and the way that she had captured Justin, that day by the lake looking at Violet, made him appear quite handsome – though he was no actor and some of the subsequent film showed him a bit wooden. However, the leading lady was what everyone would remember. The story needed to be stronger the next time, she thought. A murder mystery perhaps, she thought as she waited for Sir Guy’s verdict.

‘Very, very promising,’ he said as soon as he had swallowed his tea. ‘I think I could sell that. It would make a very good little short before a main film about a horse or something like that. How much do you want for it?’

‘How much is it worth?’ asked Daisy. ‘Be honest, now,’ she added.

‘I’ll take a chance on it.’ He took out his pocketbook and handed her a crisp ten-pound note.

Daisy stared at it. She longed to take it. It was enough to buy a dress for Violet. However, she forced herself to shake her head. She had to be fair and she wanted to be considered a professional. ‘Sell it first,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll wait for the money.’

‘I’ll sell it,’ he said confidently. ‘It’s just the sort of thing that people want. Make them feel good. You have a clever eye for the right sort of thing, and a good, steady hand. I must bring you a tripod the next time I come. Go on, take it. Ten pounds is nothing. I paid a hundred pounds the other day for a film by someone I had never heard of. And he just took his story from a book. I tell you what, Daisy, you could do a lot of filming tonight. Young people having a party – that’s the sort of thing that cinema-goers like to see. You can always make up a story to go with it – nothing complicated. Complicated stories don’t work on film.’

‘I’d like to do something longer – something with more of a story in it,’ said Daisy. ‘Of course, Rose is complaining that I cut out a lot of hers – it was a sort of back story, all about the heroine having a jealous stepmother and about the stepbrother being favoured. It was very good, especially considering she is only twelve, but I didn’t think that all that sort of stuff could be shown in a film.’

‘You’re quite right,’ said Sir Guy. ‘What you want in a film is action – something that can be conveyed by the expressions on the faces and then just summarized in the storyboards. One of these days someone will invent a camera that can record sound at the same time as filming but until that happens, you have to work inside the limitations of your medium. Do you understand what I mean by that?’

Daisy nodded. ‘That’s the way I think,’ she said. ‘I find myself reading books like that these days – often you could do a chapter with just one shot and a caption. I was reading
Wuthering Heights
the other day and I was thinking of how I could film it. The trouble is that I have no actors! Violet looks good, but she can’t act.’

‘Use what you’ve got,’ advised Sir Guy. ‘If I were you I would film people doing what they do naturally, then pick out good shots and try to fit a story around them. Use the house, the lake, the woods – everything. This party now – if you film that, you will probably come up with a story to fit it. And remember, no one worries about having an original plot. Good heavens, the number of versions of “Anna the Adventuress” that I’ve seen during the last three years!’

Poppy and Daisy shared one of the biggest bedrooms in the house. When they were babies, the yellow room, as it was called, had been turned into a night nursery with a bed for the nurse as well as cots for the two little girls. It was a lovely room with five big windows, three of them facing south and the other two catching the early morning sun from the east. The wallpaper was a design of soft yellow primroses and the curtains matched in colour. Both were now faded but the place was still pretty with a yellow-painted dressing room attached to the main room, attractive white-painted storage cupboards and wardrobes, and a white marble fireplace.