Page 22 of The Model Debutante
Tallie glared at her. ‘I do wish you would stop this jesting of yours, Zenna. First you say you expect him to propose, then to kiss me. The wretched creature is suspicious of me, that is all. He knows I have something to hide and is busily investigating me. And now he accuses me of setting my cap at his cousin.’
‘Lord Parry? But how old did you say he was? Sixteen?’
‘Eighteen, and a very young and very charming eighteen at that. I met him in Piccadilly and he took me for an ice cream and we talked until who should arrive but Lord Arndale looking like the wrath of God.’
‘Tallie!’
‘I am sorry, I did not intend to blaspheme. He is like one of those Greek gods. You know, thunderbolts and eyes that turn people to stone,’ she added wildly.
‘I think you are getting thoroughly confused with your Greek myths and need a nice cup of tea.’ Zenna put her head out of the door and called to Annie then came back and sat down.
‘I don’t think I can drink anything, thank you. I am full of lemon ice and hot chocolate.’ She tried not to think about theepisode in Gunter’s but it kept insisting on being worried at, like a sore tooth. ‘Whyshould he think anything so foolish as that? William is seven years younger than I am.’
‘Perhaps he’s jea–’ Zenna bit off the word. ‘Perhaps he is just abnormally suspicious,’ she said soothingly. ‘Tell me all about Gunter’s, I have always wanted to try one of their ices.’
Chapter Eight
‘There was a time – can it be just a few days ago? – when my only worry was earning my living,’ Tallie lamented as the hackney carriage made its way along Oxford Street. ‘Now I have to worry about my position in Society – or lack of it; how to invest a ridiculous amount of money wisely; how to keep an interfering, autocratic aristocrat from discovering my secrets and how to persuadeyouto allow me to buy you a dress or two.’
‘Tallie, I simply cannot accept expensive presents,’ Zenna protested for the third time that morning.
‘I am not trying to give you expensive presents – just one evening dress so we can go to parties together.Please,Zenna. I need your support. Lady Parry is so kind, but it is not the same as a friend my own age. And it would give me such pleasure to give you a present.’ She smiled hopefully at her friend who sighed and smiled back.
‘Very well, and thank you, Tallie. It would be very pleasant to have a nice evening gown, I have to admit, but as for the other gowns you were talking of, that is far too much.’
‘Business expenses,’ Tallie said firmly. ‘We can put them down as business expenses. You must have some good day dresses for interviewing teachers and parents. We are aiming at the highest quality for this school, are we not?’
Zenna began to protest that arguing with Tallie was more exhausting than trying to handle a room full of six year-old boys when the hackney pulled up outside the Pantheon Bazaar and Tallie got to her feet. ‘We will start here, then I thought Harding and Howell, Stagg and Mantle’s and Clark and Debenham’s.’ She smiled at Zenna who descended onto the pavement looking apprehensive at this formidable list. ‘Then this afternoon, Dickens and Smith as a start.’ She plunged into the shop,pursued by Zenna who announced that whatever else the day held it was going to include a lengthy pause at Gunter’s. A very lengthy one indeed.
At four o’clock that afternoon they wearily made their way up to Tallie’s bedroom and collapsed onto the bed scattering parcels and bandboxes on the floor as they did so. Behind them came the faint sounds of little Annie struggling up the stairs with still more packages.
‘My feet!’ Zenna moaned, pulling off her shoes and wriggling her toes with a gasp of relief.
Tallie levered herself up on her elbows from her position prone on the mattress and sighed happily. ‘Mine too. Oh, thank you, Annie. Put them in the corner and then please bring us some tea up.’ She dragged the pillows up into a heap and sat back against them. ‘A nice cup of tea and then all the fun of unwrapping everything.’ She smiled at Zenna coaxingly. ‘Admit it, Zenna, you did enjoy it a little bit, didn’t you?’
‘Well…yes, I have to confess I did. Thank you very much for the gown and the slippers and gloves. It felt very good to dress up for once. But we do seem to have bought a vast amount of things. Do you think you have almost everything you need now?’
‘I should not think so for a minute,’ Tallie replied, reflecting on the ladies’ boudoirs she had glimpsed so frequently in her career as a milliner. ‘Lady Parry would be very disappointed if she does not have the opportunity to supervise my shopping. No, this was just so that I did not feel too drab in the first few days. My old pelisse and walking dress are on their last prayers, all my stockings have been darned and both my pairs of gloves have got splits in the seams.’
She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the images of the day’s extravagances swirl across her mind. ‘It is fun to have a holiday and to be able to buy what one wants, but I am glad wehave our business ventures to be working on, Zenna. I cannot feel comfortable with the thought of Society life. From what I have seen it is entirely composed of luxury and pleasure and I’m sure I would soon become bored with nothing else to think of.’
Into the images of dress lengths and slippers, fans and feathers, the picture of a tall dark, elegant gentleman rose, quite unbidden. How did Lord Arndale spend his time? she wondered. In the company of actresses and opera dancers? At the card tables? At prize fights and the cocking ring? She tried to imagine that coolly sardonic expression giving way to excitement, passion, anticipation – and failed. His lordship was undoubtedly a prime example of the indolent and aloof members of Society whose way of life she was about to sample. It would be satisfying to cause some emotion to cross those chiselled features or to provoke a response which was neither controlled nor temperate. A small smile caught at the corners of Tallie’s lips. Yes, very satisfying indeed.
Two days later the indolent and aloof gentleman in question mounted the steps of the house in Upper Wimpole Street and found himself unexpectedly encountering almost the entire household.
Nick had spent a taxing morning with his steward who had come up from the country estates with a formidable pile of problems and questions to be resolved. Later that afternoon he suspected he was going to have to have an equally long list of details to decide with Mr Dover before the final work could be completed on Miss Gower’s will. That evening he fully intended leaving young William to his own devices, however dubious they sounded, and relaxing with a small group of friends over dinner, cards and several bottles of excellent claret.
But just now he had been waylaid by his aunt and asked to call upon Miss Grey. ‘You will tell her I will collect her in mycarriage at ten on Wednesday morning, will you not, Nicholas dear? And if you can establish how many trunks she has, then Rainbird can organise the carrier.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. ‘Thank you, dearest.’ Then she had rushed away in her usual whirlwind manner before he could ask why a note would not serve the purpose just as well.
Now he was here he might as well take the opportunity of smoothing over the friction from their last encounter. He could not really believe she had set her sights on young William Parry, but it had been bad tactics to let her see he was concerned. If she was the sort of woman who saw opposition as a challenge she might attempt to attach the lad’s interest simply as a game. And William was far too young to be breaking his heart over an older woman Nick decided, conveniently forgetting his own initiation into the arts of love at the age of seventeen by a sophisticated lady more than ten years his senior.
The door was opened by a diminutive maid with a snub nose, freckles, an apron too large for her and an expression of alarm. ‘Oh Gawd. Miss Grey? Oh yes, sir! I’ll tell her you’re here, sir, if you’ll just wait in the front parlour, sir.’
She flung open the door to let him in, appeared to realise she should have asked his name to announce him, gave a scared squeak and shut the door again behind him. Nick found himself in a cosy, slightly shabby room with an air of comfortable femininity, enhanced by the presence on the sofa of an enchantingly pretty girl with large blue eyes and a mass of blonde curls. Tumbled in a pile by her side were undergarments of a most frivolous, intimate and dainty variety.
She bundled the lingerie under a cushion with what struck Nick as admirable quick-wittedness and got to her feet, placing a thimble and needle on the table beside her. ‘I am sorry, sir,’ she said, blushing. ‘Annie is not yet trained as a downstairs maid and I am afraid she does not always remember to announce callers.’
‘Nicholas Stangate. I called to see Miss Grey. May I presume to guess I am addressing Miss Amelie LeNoir? I apologise for disturbing you.’ It would not be the slightest hardship to disturb Miss LeNoir he reflected, watching the artless pleasure at his recognition, the lovely figure in a surprisingly modest afternoon dress, the parted lips and soft curves. No hardship at all.
