Debutantes: In Love (3 page)

‘Good profession, the law,’ said the solicitor slightly stiffly.

‘Yes, that’s what I used to say to him, didn’t I, Basil darling?
Poor dear boy, you will have nothing – you know that you really should go to university and get some sort of profession; what a pity you are not clever.
That’s what I used to say.’

‘Yes, Mama. You used to say that every time his school reports arrived!’ Joan, the youngest of the Pattenden girls, had come out of the house and joined the others on the lawn.

‘Well, at least I was never expelled from school like you were,’ said Baz.

‘Not for dancing in the nude or anything,’ explained Joan in a confidential whisper from behind her hand to the solicitor. ‘It was just for smoking.’

‘And setting the dormitory on fire,’ put in Baz as the man tittered uncomfortably.

‘That was completely unintentional,’ said Joan airily. ‘Just a mistake that anyone could have made! Anyway, will you stay for lunch, Mr Duckett? Or do you want to get the two o’clock train back to London? I’ll get one of the stable lads to drive you to the station if you do.’

‘Oh, I must get the two o’clock,’ Mr Duckett insisted, and then, with the air of man nerving himself to dive into an icy sea, said very rapidly, ‘And you do understand, your ladyship, that his lordship the Earl wants the house completely vacated of all of the family for four months after Easter so that it can be thoroughly decorated according to his instructions and a new boiler and central-heating system installed.’

‘He’s turning me out of my house, my own son,’ said Lady Dorothy sadly.

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Mama,’ said Joan. ‘You’ve already said that you plan to spend a few months from April in the London house – there’s my presentation and my season coming up, you know. And Baz will
have
to come with us, won’t you, Baz? You’ll have Poppy there at the same time, because she’ll be being presented with me. You can dance with her at parties – as long as you make sure first that I have a partner, of course. We’ll all have such fun, won’t we, Poppy? We’ll set London on fire.’

Poppy looked helplessly back. If that letter did not come from Elaine in India, if her father did not give permission, then she would not have a London season at all. Up to now she had felt comforted by the thought that if she didn’t go to London, then Baz would not go either. Now she knew that he would have no choice.

She said goodbye mechanically to the solicitor and followed Joan into the house and up the stairs to wash her hands.

I
must
get to London for the season, she thought. I can’t bear to be without Baz for three whole months.

Chapter Three

Friday 1 February 1924

Daisy was nowhere to be seen when Poppy returned, but the car was in the stable yard so Poppy guessed that she was in the bedroom they shared. She sneaked up the back stairs in order not to have to meet Great-Aunt Lizzie, opened the door very quietly and found Daisy lying on her bed, sobbing quietly.

‘What’s wrong?’ They had had such fun, herself, Baz and Joan, during the afternoon that, to her shame, she found that she had once again forgotten about the court case. She had been timing her arrival in order to give herself just enough time to get ready for dinner and to encounter Great-Aunt Lizzie in the safe presence of the servants waiting at the table.

‘Tell me what happened,’ she said nervously. ‘Was it very awful?’

Daisy sat up and wiped her eyes. ‘Terrible,’ she said. ‘From start to finish! When we got there the street was full of reporters. I expect that Denis Derrington must have tipped them off. They were awful, shouting questions and pushing notebooks in front of Father. And then all those cameras going off in Father’s face – it was an agony for him. It was a good job that we had Morgan with us,’ she said. ‘He managed to park fairly nearby and you know what he’s like; he stands up to people and he managed to clear a way through the crowd for Father and myself. He took no notice of the reporters and cameramen, just shouldered them out of the way.’

Poppy nodded. Morgan was a powerfully built young man and he would not hesitate to tackle the bravest reporter.

‘
The Kent Messenger
already had banner headlines:
Local Peer Sued by Heir
,’ Daisy went on. ‘I hurried Father past, but you can guess what it was like.’

‘And what happened in the court?’ asked Poppy. She started to tidy her hair, running the comb ruthlessly through the tangles. Somehow it hurt her more than she had anticipated to hear of her father’s humiliation.

‘Well, Denis Derrington was there, of course – even the lawyer remarked on how happy he was looking. He kept roaring with laughter. I’d never seen him in person before today. He’s got very unusual green eyes, and strange eyebrows, sort of winged, going up at the sides . . . Reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who.’

‘How was Father?’ asked Poppy anxiously.

‘Not good,’ said Daisy flatly. ‘You see the thing is,’ she explained, ‘that in theory Father needs to get Denis Derrington’s permission before he sells even a single tree. It’s just stupid, really. The Pattendens and the Melroses and the Frimleys are selling off farms and using the money to ride out this time of poor prices for the food grown on the farm, but Denis keeps refusing.’ She shrugged. ‘And then, of course, Father took no notice and went ahead with the sale of some mature woodland – well, you know what he’s like, he . . .’

‘What happened in the end?’ interrupted Poppy. She could guess, but she had to know for sure.

Daisy hesitated. ‘Father was very odd in court,’ she said eventually. ‘He seemed to take no interest in the evidence or the swearing of documents. In the end, when the judge asked him whether he denied receiving the letter from Denis refusing permission to sell any land, Father just stared straight ahead of him and made no answer for a long time. And, you know, Poppy, up to that minute, I thought the judge might be sympathetic to him, going on about Father’s large family and he being a widower and everything, but suddenly Father just shouted out, “That’s my business.” And he was glaring at the judge. And then he said, “I came here for justice, not to be interrogated.” And of course the judge didn’t like that and told him that he could sit down.’

‘And then?’ Poppy wished that she didn’t have to hear of all of this.

Daisy dabbed at her eyes again with her handkerchief, took a deep breath and said, ‘Well, he was fined and told that if he sold any woodland or other property without the written permission of Denis Derrington, then he could be sent to prison.’

Poppy gazed at her with horror.

Daisy started to cry again. ‘I hate myself,’ she wailed, ‘but all the way home the one thing that I kept thinking was: we’ll never get to London now for our season, and I’ll never have a chance to make a film with Sir Guy. I did so want to become a film director and make some money and now I don’t think it will ever happen. We’ll be stuck here until we are as old as Great-Aunt Lizzie and nothing good will ever happen to us.’

Resolutely she went across to the washstand, dabbed cold water on to her eyelids and stood for a moment with the towel pressed to her face. Then she walked to the door. ‘I’d better go down,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Bateman has sounded the gong. Hurry up and change. We don’t want any more trouble tonight.’

Chapter Four

Friday 1 February 1924

By the time Poppy came into the dining room the others were seated around the table in the cold, gloomy dining room. They had finished their soup and the battered silver spoons had been replaced into worn china bowls. Poppy slid into her place beside Daisy and stiffened as Great-Aunt Lizzie turned angry eyes towards her. But Bateman, the butler, immediately came forward and ladled soup into her bowl, and Daisy, after one rapid glance at her, continued reading from a letter in her hand.

‘“
I must now tell you all the sad and tragic story of a girl who went wrong
,” – it’s Rose, Poppy,’ said Daisy hastily, as if to stop Poppy from saying anything, and Poppy gave a reluctant smile. Ever since Rose had gone to boarding school in Switzerland in January, the family had been bombarded with letters, each of them filled with the terrible deeds of the girls at the school. It had started with a certain Angela, who had daringly greased the floor outside the staffroom with a pot of Vaseline – causing the teachers to go skidding in all directions down the corridor; then it had moved on to Barbara, who had stood up at the end of dinner, rung the headmistress’s own hand bell and then publicly decried the food in terms so like Rose’s language that Barbara was either briefed by Rose, or else invented by her. Next came Caroline, who daringly sold photographs of ten of the prettiest girls in the school to a white slave trader – even the Earl expressed doubt over that story, though Great-Aunt Lizzie could believe any wickedness of this modern world of 1924. There had also been tales of Dorothy who had stolen the silver cups from the library, pawned them and run away to Paris on the proceeds, and now there was Edwina . . . Michael Derrington was chuckling loudly over her exploits while Great-Aunt Lizzie sat rigid with shock.

Poppy swallowed her soup, and thought of Baz. Odd sentences from Rose’s letter wandered into her mind:

‘. . .
a young lady of weak will and mislaid morals . . . seduced by the thought of a party in a hot-air balloon . . . an experience as yet totally unknown in her dull and eventless life . . . to the horror of the headmistress and the terror of the teachers!
’

A snort of laughter from the Earl recalled Poppy to herself. Even Bateman was smiling at the vivid picture of the hot-air balloon landing on the hockey pitch at six o’clock in the morning, delivering an inebriated Edwina back to school in time for early morning prayers after she had deposited ten empty champagne bottles on the windowsill of the headmistress’s study.

‘That girl should be expelled,’ declared Great-Aunt Lizzie.

She probably will be, thought Poppy, rapidly finishing her soup, if she’s not simply a figment of Rose’s fertile imagination. She half heard Daisy tell Great-Aunt Lizzie that Rose had received a prize for having submitted the most book reviews in the first half-term. Poppy peered over Daisy’s shoulder and read:

‘
I gave that boring book five out of five stars as it is so immensely fat that it was useful as a second pillow underneath the thin old thing they give us. I made up the review and the librarian had obviously never read it either as she wrote: EXCELLENT WORK.
’

Poppy chewed thoughtfully on the crust of her roll, admiring the way that Daisy skipped bits of Rose’s letter and just read out the sections that would amuse or interest the Earl or Great-Aunt Lizzie. Her mind went back to her own concerns. Would the girls be able to have a season? Certainly her father could not afford it since the bank had told him that he could borrow no more money. He probably had not enough money to pay the fine and the court costs. She and Daisy had almost given up hope that their mother’s sister Elaine, Daisy’s real mother, would, as she had promised, come back from India in order to present the two girls at court, as she had done for their elder sister, Violet. Perhaps Violet would have me to stay, thought Poppy, but that was unlikely. Violet was too busy to be bothered with her younger sisters, not to mention the fact that she also did not have the money to launch the girls into society. Violet and Justin had barely enough for their own needs, although Violet had been hoping that Justin might get an increase in his salary soon.

‘Poppy, I’ve already asked you twice where you have been all of this afternoon,’ said Great-Aunt Lizzie, breaking into her thoughts.

‘In my bedroom,’ lied Poppy, and crossed her fingers that the old woman had not gone in search of her. The jolly afternoon that she had spent with Baz’s family seemed a long way away.

‘I’ve another letter too,’ said Daisy hurriedly. ‘It’s for Poppy and myself – from India.’

A glow of excitement came over Poppy and suddenly she felt full of optimism. Perhaps she was going to get away after all. How clever of Daisy to get Father in a good mood before she broached this one. She watched as Daisy slit the envelope and saw the words inside: ‘Dearest Daisy and Poppy’. Unlike their father, Great-Aunt Lizzie had never been told that Daisy knew that her real mother was not Mary Derrington, the mother of Violet, Poppy and Rose, but Elaine, younger sister of Mary – and that Michael was not her father. After the death of Elaine’s young lover, she had chosen to bear his child in secret and to transfer Daisy to her sister Mary. Even now Elaine was terrified of her aunt discovering that she had told the truth to her daughter. So whenever she wrote to Daisy there was always a pretence that the letter was for both girls. Poppy’s heart began to thud with nervous excitement as she waited for the letter to be read out.