Falling in Love With English Boys (20 page)
“But let me guess,” Elizabeth said drily. “Bayard had a grand old time.”
Consuelo laughed. “Of course he did. Do note, he has improved tremendously since.”
I looked at Elizabeth. “Last summer,” she admitted. “South African law student I met at a world debt rally. Disgusting student digs in Brixton, but God, he was gorgeous.” She sighed.
Consuelo sighed with her. “He was. He really was.”
“What happened with him? Why aren’t you seeing him now?”
Elizabeth shrugged, or tried to. She’d borrowed one of Consuelo’s dad’s oilskin Barbour coats and it weighed a ton. I knew because I was wearing another one. “He went off to Harvard last September. Doubt I’ll ever see him again, but I think of him fondly every time I see peaches.” She passed me the bottle. “Haven’t done it yet, have you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Only to the brilliant and ultraperceptive.” Elizabeth can be kind(ish) sometimes, too.
So I told them about Adam and the uncertainty and the wrestling (me moving his hand out of my bra, him putting it between my legs, me moving it, him slinging a leg over my lap, me moving . . . all while trying to have a nice deep kiss . . .
exhausting
) at his house, at my house, in every movie theater in Philadelphia. “I just couldn’t picture it, my first time. With him. All I could imagine was his skinny bare butt and those foul silver Nikes. In bed.”
Elizabeth: “Good for you! No way a bloke who wears silver shoes would be good in bed.”
Consuelo: “You were absolutely right. First time’s too important. Well . . . sometimes . . . No, no ...too important . . .”
Elizabeth: “If I had it to do again, I’d go for a weekend at the Ritz. Room service.”
Consuelo: “Rose petals and candles.”
Elizabeth: “A copy of
The Joy of Sex.”
Consuelo: “Oh, well, we did have one of those. Maybe a
newer
edition . . .”
By the time the wine was gone, we were feeling plenty warm, and had come up with this:
The Top Ten Things Every Girl Should Have the First Time
1. A real bed. With clean sheets (Elizabeth’s addition).
2. Condoms. And not XL ones because, honestly,
none
of them really are. (Consuelo’s addition. She has three brothers and eight male cousins.)
3. A clear head.
4. A girlfriend on duty at home, just in case you have to tell
someone
.
5. A guy who realizes it’s a big deal for you, this time.
6. A guy who understands that it’s a big deal every time.
7. A guy who tries to make it special. Every time.
8. A guy who uses your name, not “babe” or “God” or, God forbid, “Delilah.”
9. A guy who sends a poem after.
10. A guy who says “I love you” before.
And this:
The Top One Thing Every Girl Should Have. Period.
1. Good girlfriends. As many as possible.
How lucky am I?
The tricky boy texted as I was making my slightly wobbly way into bed.
HisText: U up 4 c-ing ded ppl?
MyText: A-B? Y. 2moro?
HisText: N. Fri.
MyText: OK.
HisText. Gr8. GTG. Nite.
MyText: Will?
HisText: ?
MyText: Fave poem?
HisText: P.I.M.P. by 50¢.
MyText: : P
HisText: OK. No Second Troy. Yeats. Y u ask?
MyText: Tale 4 othr time. Nite.
HisText: Dream >
∧
. .
∧
<
Oh, I will, Will.
Westminster Abbey, day after 2moro.
Just how bad will it be for me to walk among the dead, imagining doing very live things with Will? I guess we’ll stay away from Queen Victoria’s tomb. She would not be amused.
I think Byron, on the other hand, would approve.
July 19
Sad Story
He canceled on me.
Unlike my father, at least he had the decency to do it over the phone. Well, he talked to my voice mail, but that’s not his fault. My phone was in fridge. Don’t ask; I have no idea.
Cat. I’m so sorry. I’m not going to be able to see you tomorrow. I have to drive down to Kent and . . . anyway, ring me. We’ll arrange another day.
No biggie, right? I mean, I think there’s a cricket test match on the telly.
Sigh.
I even had my Byron ready.
So, we’ll go no more aroving . . .
Prophetic? Or just pathetic?
GTG.
So today my breakfast tray arrived with a note from Papa.
“We shall drive in the Park at four o’clock. Do not make me wait.”
I did not. I was carefully dressed and ready and waiting in the hall by ten minutes to, as nervous as if it were my court bow to the King and Queen. My shoes were polished, my fingernails impeccable. He has been known to check.
One goes to Hyde Park in the afternoon to see and be seen. The footpaths are filled, the roads clogged with fashionable carriages full of fashionable people. Sitting beside stern, silent Papa, I realised how I have liked coming to the Park with Mama. She laughs with me about the ridiculous hats on the silliest ladies, about the foppish young gentlemen whose cravats are so starched that they must keep their chins in the air, about the carriages full of laughing girls my age and their single, bored chaperones whose primary task is to keep their charges from tumbling excitedly into the road and being run over by an oncoming carriage full of laughing girls.
Papa nodded to several acquaintances of his. They were all older and overly done up. The ladies were rouged and held rheumy-eyed pugs on their laps, the gentlemen in fancy coats and, I suspect, corsets. I knew them a little: all wealthy, all titled, all foolish. Then I spied Mr. Eccleston walking with his sweet younger sister and waved happily. “Do not make a spectacle of yourself, Katherine,” Papa growled.
“Yes, Papa.” I stopped waving.
“And do not sit on your hands! You are not a child.”
I had not realised that I’d shoved my hands under my legs at his first command. It was habit. When I was first allowed at the adult supper table, he scolded me so for waving my hands about as I spoke that it became nature to slip them beneath me at the first sign of disapproval. I had just done it again. For a moment I thought of Winnie Stuart, and that she must have enjoyed family meals in a way I have never, all the Stuarts discussing
Waverley
and events of the world and arguing happily, inadvertently flinging bits of food at the footmen with their waving forks.
Beside me, Papa cleared his throat. “I have come to a decision, miss, about your future. I have decided it is high time for you to be married.”
Why do ideas that sound so marvelous in our voices suddenly sound so disagreeable in a parent’s? “But I am . . . I do not . . . I am only eighteen.”
“More than old enough. You are finished with the schoolroom. I trust you are as capable of butchering Mozart sonatas and sewing nothing of usefulness as any girl of our class. What else is there for you to do? To be? A husband will give you value.”
In that moment, everything surrounding me took on a startling clarity. I could hear each clap of the horses’ hooves against the hard path. We passed a young couple in the road. She had a mole on her chin. His heavy eyebrows met in the middle. There was sunlight glinting on the Serpentine, little diamonds that vanished into glassy ripples with the slice of a punter’s oar. Papa’s hands, where they crossed atop the gold lion’s-head crown of his walking stick, were pale and slack. He was utterly unconcerned with my thoughts on any of this.
“I take it you have someone in mind,” I heard myself say dully.
“I might, perhaps. And should I present you with a man I deem worthy, you will accept him.”
I thought of Chilham and shuddered. “I will not.”
His hands tightened then on his stick. I could not look at his face. “And I will pretend I did not just hear those words from you. Shall we try this again? When I decide to hand over responsibility for you, you will go, miss, and you will do so with a curtsey and respectful farewell!”
“But I am to marry Thomas Baker!”
Oh, the mortification! I had not meant to say the words aloud and would have given the world to take them back.
“That ridiculous young fop? All hair and hot air. My daughter, married to a poet? I should sooner see you wed a pig farmer. The product is the same.”
“But, Papa—”
“Preposterous. God, how like your mother you are, surrounding yourself with poets and painters, and persons of no consequence whatsoever!”
“He has consequence! He is clever and charming and—”
Papa snorted. Then demanded harshly, “Has he declared himself to you?”
“He will.”
Something in my face made Papa smile slightly. “So that is how it is. He has not. And he will not. Stupid, stupid girl. Now heed me well, Katherine. If I hear you are making a spectacle of yourself with this poet, or with any other worthless young man, for that matter, you will have cause to regret it. I will have you out of London and back at Percy’s Vale before you can say ‘rusticate.’ Have I made myself clear?” When I merely gaped at him, he snapped, “Have I made myself
clear
?”
This time, I nodded, thinking, for the very first time in my life, that I hated him.
He said not another word to me on the drive home. Nor did he help me from the carriage. He waited, cold and silent, looking straight ahead, while the footman did. I was scarcely on the ground before he commanded, “White’s!” to the driver, and they rolled away.
I stood in the street, watching as they turned the corner and disappeared. I will leave, I thought. I will run somewhere until I can run no more. I will go to Luisa. She will shelter me until I can send a message to Thomas. I will . . .
I will do no such thing. I have a fortune men would marry me for, yet not a crown in my pockets. I could get to Luisa, but what then? I could just as easily send a message to Thomas from home. Saying . . . what? He has
not
declared himself.
He will. Certainly he will.
He must.
I thought of Charles, so far away. I do not know what he could do, but it would be something. He always does. Or Nicholas. He would come, if only because he had promised Charles he would. I could summon Nicholas and tell him that I do not
want
to be an adult, if this is what it means. Tell him that I want to go back to the days at Percy’s Vale when it was enough to be pert and pretty, and when I informed everyone that I would marry a prince, they laughed, but not unkindly because, after all, it was vaguely possible . . .
Stupid girl, indeed. Stupid, stupid girl.
Lord Chilham, with his pudding head and spider legs? I will drown myself in the Serpentine first!
I did not see Mama standing on the stairs when I entered the house. I could not see much of anything through my hated, angry tears.
“Katherine?”
She was there before I could say anything, arms around me, guiding me into the sitting room. She sat with me on the settee while I cried until I could cry no more. When she tried to move, I clung to her as I have not done in so very long.
“I think he means for me to marry Lord Chilham” was all I could manage.
“Yes, he probably does, the selfish wretch.”
I have seen Mama bitter and cold and furious. I have seen her rail at Papa; I have seen her throw books and cushions, and even once a crystal decanter. I still do not know what he did to anger her so, but I do know he laughed at her when she missed by a yard. I have seen her turn pale and silent in his presence. I have never seen her go so completely, quietly hard.
She cupped her hands around my face, heedless of the tears and blotches and of my dripping nose. “Look at me, Katherine. Look at me. I promise you, as long as there is breath in my body,” she said fiercely, “that will not happen.Your father cannot force you to marry someone he chooses, just as he cannot stop you from someday marrying whom
you
choose. Not Chilham. Of course not Chilham.”
Suddenly I felt just that little bit better.
“No, but you cannot—” I hiccuped loudly. “You cannot stop Papa from wishing it, and from thinking so terribly ill of me!”
“That is something lacking in him, the fool. Not in you. As for what he wishes . . .” She smiled slightly, but it was a hard smile. “He has long wished for a yacht, but he does not have one, does he?”
“Well, no.”
“Nor have I stopped writing.”
I felt badly for wanting that, too. She must have seen it in my face. She laughed. “Not even for you, my darling. Like the tiara. You spent fifteen years wishing for a diamond tiara. Do you have one?”
“No.” I actually laughed with her, and hiccuped again, remembering many arguments and several notable tantrums over the subject. “I do not.”
“Then trust me, my dearest, my beloved girl, when I say there will be no marriage to Lord Chilham.”
I believed her. I
believe
her.
July 22
Cannonball
How it began, yesterday:
HisText: 2moro ok 4u?
MyText: Y
HisText: H-Park?
MyText: Y
Yes. Yes. Yes.
HisText: Gr8. 11. Boathouse?
MyText: CU
Hyde Park. Yay. And at lunchtime, no less. Pick-a-Nick. I couldn’t quite manage the how of taking an entire three-course meal, including the proverbial loaf of bread and bottle of wine, in any of my bags. So I settled for one of Professor Fungus’s plastic tablecloths and a chocolate orange. They (the oranges) break into little sections—how cute is that?—just the right size for slipping into someone else’s mouth while they recline on the grass in the middle of Hyde Park. Nice prelude to a kiss, no?
