Little Lady, Big Apple

by Hester Browne

  The second bunch of freesias and lilies contained a card saying, ‘Orlando von Borsch finally comes good! Love from Godric and Kirsty xx’.

  And that really did send me into the power shower singing.

  Once dressed and invigorated by such early morning efficiency, I called the builders at Nelson’s house to check up on them. Gabi and Woolfe, predictably, hadn’t been running the show with the necessary ferocity, so I told them I’d stupidly forgotten to unhook Nelson’s hidden security webcams in the house – a handy trick I used to buck up slacking cleaners. Yes, I said, I could see Jason waving at me, and crikey! Would Dave please stop doing that?

  I couldn’t see them, of course. But builders are easy to second-guess.

  Once I’d done that, even my usual to-do list was exhausted. I’d bought a new dress for the occasion and as I had nothing else to do but get ready to wear it, I gave up, and spent the rest of the morning browsing round the little vintage shops in the Village, buying presents to take home. I even called in at a bookstore and was flicking through the English magazines, when I suddenly caught sight of Country Life.

  Or rather, I caught sight of my mother – Country Life cover girl and the new face of the Women’s Institute.

  Dumbstruck, I flipped through to the feature, where Mummy sat looking twenty years younger than she really was on her chaise-longue, wearing a silky pair of Indian trousers, surrounded by pots and pots and pots of jam, gleaming like jewels on every available surface.

  I squinted. Was that Allegra scowling in the background? She looked as if she’d been made over by a seriously determined stylist, in a pretty red dress and – heaven forfend – blusher. The caption read, ‘Belinda Romney-Jones, at home with just some of her year’s produce, with etiquette expert daughter, Melissa’.

  Melissa?

  Well, if Allegra was still under Swedish Mafia surveillance it was cheaper than plastic surgery, I guessed.

  My eye skimmed the article with a mixture of pride and dread. ‘Mrs Romney-Jones, wife of long-serving Tory MP, Martin . . . Keen home-maker . . . knitting . . . supporter of WI markets . . . “I’ve always loved making jam, ever since I planted our first quince tree!”’

  Pride, horror and bewilderment swirled up in me, and I couldn’t read any more. I still bought the magazine though.

  By two, I was in Bliss on the very last lap of my pampering, when the phone rang.

  That was very bad in itself, I knew, as phones were verboten, but what made it worse was that it was Daddy.

  Nobody knew how to puncture a relaxing mood like Daddy.

  As usual, he didn’t bother with ‘Hello! How are you? We miss you’ or anything like that. He went straight in with, ‘I need to get time sheets off you for that research you’re doing for me, in the next twenty-four hours. And don’t bother adding extra hours onto them because I’ve got to get them past those bottom-feeders at Customs and Excise.’

  The Russian lady pummelling the dead skin off my feet glowered upwards. I felt got at from both ends.

  ‘Yes, well, of course, I’d do that,’ I began, ‘but I don’t have the—’

  ‘Well, get them!’ he squawked. ‘You have been putting all this through the agency accounts, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Don’t say yes like that! Your sister, it seems, has set up her own company to process her salary!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Indeed! What? That’s not what I need to hear when I’ve got Simon round here with some missive from the bank, your grandmother wafting around as if she’s in a second-rate touring production of Blithe Spirit, and bloody Lars hanging about the place, cluttering up the drawing room with spearheads!’

  ‘Oh, is Lars back?’

  ‘He’s just going!’ Daddy bellowed, I think towards Lars.

  ‘And Mummy?’ I tried, longing for one nice image to close the conversation on. ‘I saw her feature in Country Life. Happy anniversary, by the way. Did you have a nice time on your mini-break?’

  Daddy took a long breath. ‘Melissa, your mother has barely stopped knitting for seven months now. When we plighted our troth, thirty-five years ago, I got Madame Butterfly. I did not marry your mother for her to turn into Madame bloody Defarge. And I resent the way she is constantly armed.’

  ‘She’s the face of the WI!’ I added hopefully.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite.’

  I wished he could be nicer about her. It was never too late to traumatise a child.

  Then either he was cut off by a poor Manhattan signal (charitable explanation) or he hung up on me (usual explanation).

  I sighed.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said to Svetlana.

  She glared at me. ‘Forty minutes it take, to get strrrress out of your feet.’

  We both looked down. They were jutting out of the water like two very tense rocks.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said again.

  It would have been nice to sweep into the Met on Jonathan’s arm, but he was too busy attending to last-minute details to take me in. Lori had organised me a very swish limo, though, which sort of made up for it a little bit, especially when I found a red rose corsage on the back seat.

  I wished he’d seen me as I left the house, though. Yolanda the dogwalker called round to collect Braveheart for his overnight and nearly wept when I opened the door.

  ‘You look like an angel!’ she howled, hugging me as closely as she could given my voluminous dress and big up-do. ‘An angel . . . with lipstick!’

  I took that as a compliment, and promised to tell her if I saw anyone famous in the loos.

  At the bottom of the long sweep of steps I took a deep breath, suddenly struck with nerves. Still, I’d told Godric to get on and do this sort of thing, hadn’t I?

  One, I told myself, arriving on my own means I can take my time and look at everything without being rushed past.

  Two, no one will be looking at me with Jonathan and wondering why I’m not Cindy.

  Three.

  I took small steps up the red carpet, my stomach fluttering, staring at my new gold shoes, aware I was being observed all round.

  I really wished Jonathan was here, just so I could tell him how speechless I was at the glamour of it all.

  Three . . .

  There was no three. I wished he was here at my side.

  Tiny lanterns lit the way up the steps into the splendid marble hall, where huge sprays of lilies and roses sat like giant peacocks, throwing their musky night-time fragrance into the echoing air. Red ropes marked off the area for the party, and, even though I was early, black-tied guests were already gathering, removing coats and cashmere shawls, taking a glass of champagne from huge trays, before being ushered discreetly towards the Temple of Dendur, where the main event was taking place.

  I handed in Granny’s little fake fur jacket, and followed the flow of people, letting my spine lengthen and my walk swing. With no one watching me, I was revelling in the feeling of walking on my high heels through the empty halls. Beyond the ropes, the museum was empty, and I felt a delicious giddiness at the idea of the silent halls and darkened rooms, waiting, deserted, while the glitzy and glamorous ate and drank below.

  The Temple of Dendur was a curious room: an ancient arch, with the stone temple behind it, dwarfed by a swooping modern glass ceiling. It glowed with a strange light, and I felt rather self-conscious about mingling in such a dignified setting. It was rather like having a wine and cheese evening in a church, say. On a much smaller scale, of course.

  But mingling was on the menu, so I took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, and looked round for someone to mingle with.

  I’d made conversation with two or three friendly people without managing to catch sight of Jonathan, until suddenly I spotted him in the crowd, talking animatedly to an elderly couple in very fancy black tie.

  Jonathan was born to wear black tie. He looked dignified, and yet comfortable in his dinner jacket; his hair was neat without being overdone, his long hands were
elegant without being manicured, and he carried the whole thing off with understated confidence. I felt so proud to be with him that my chest swelled in my corset.

  While he talked, he turned his head discreetly, as if he were looking for something, and when he caught sight of me, looking for him, a smile broke across his face, like sunshine.

  He excused himself from the conversation, and made his way through the crowds of guests, gliding around the waiters with their broad trays of sparkling glasses. My lips tingled with excitement as he approached, and when he finally put his fingers on my bare arm, the hairs stood up on my skin.

  ‘Melissa, you look astonishing,’ he murmured into my ear. ‘You’re the most spectacular exhibit in here.’

  ‘Too kind,’ I said.

  ‘I can see you’re busy working your famous charm on the guests, but could I beg a quick word?’

  ‘Of course you can!’ I murmured back. ‘As many as you like!’

  ‘Oh, I only need a few,’ he said, and my heart skipped.

  Jonathan put his hand on the small of my back and guided me away from the main crowd of guests, out of the temple area and past a couple of dark-suited guards, who went to stop us, then, realising it was Jonathan, nodded us through.

  ‘The museum is meant to be closed,’ he whispered, as he took my hand to lead me quickly down the corridors. ‘We’re not meant to be sneaking out like this, but I, ah . . . I spoke to some people. We don’t have long,’ he added, ‘but there’s something I want you to see.’

  Given that his to-do list ran into several pages, I was amazed he could even spare two minutes to admire my hair-do, much less slip off for a private moment among the sarcophagi. My heart-rate quickened, and not just because we were walking through the marble-floored halls so briskly that my high heels were only just keeping up with Jonathan’s long strides.

  Eventually, we passed through an area of what seemed like fairly standard cases of china, and emerged, un-expectedly, in a drawing room.

  An English drawing room, complete with wooden floorboards, mahogany sideboards, and three of those old mirrors, half covered in tarnish, so the casual preener looks like she’s got leprosy. It even smelled like a National Trust property. All it needed was a few bowls of very old pot-pourri and a retired lady sitting on a chair glowering at my stilettos, and I could have been in Great Chigley Manor House or some such.

  Come to that, if there were two dogs, a lingering air of tension and cigar smoke, plus some distant shouting, it could be chez Romney-Jones. The instant homesickness was startling.

  ‘Good heavens,’ I said faintly. ‘It’s like . . . being at home.’

  ‘I knew you’d like it!’ beamed Jonathan. ‘Come on, we’re not done yet!’

  The thing was, I thought, as I followed him, I wasn’t sure I did like it. What was this perfectly nice drawing room doing here, in New York? I had a sudden flash of how the Greeks must feel when they turn up at the British Museum and see great chunks of their own stuff displayed wholesale.

  Barely able to contain his delight, Jonathan beckoned me through to a darker room, containing a huge, draped four-poster bed, with gorgeous old woven bedspreads falling in pleats around the base. It couldn’t have been more English if it had had Union Jack curtains. Patriotism started to swell in my breast. Now that was what I called a bed of state.

  ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘How splendid!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ said Jonathan. He stood behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist so we could both admire the good solid bed. ‘I came here before Christmas last year, while I was going through all that . . . business with Cindy and the divorce. I love the Met for that. Whenever I feel tense, I like to come here, and I always see something that puts all the rest into perspective. Something beautiful, or peaceful, or just . . . special.’

  ‘I know just what you mean!’ I said. ‘I like to go and look at the wrought ironwork at the V&A. Sturdy but beautiful.’ I wondered if he was going to suggest some kind of romp. That would be taking risky sex to terrible extremes. Surely it was all alarmed?

  ‘Well, when I came here, last December, I was very, very conflicted,’ Jonathan went on. He squeezed me. ‘But I’m not so conflicted now, I’m happy to say.’

  I couldn’t help reading the label on the side of the bed. It had come from a stately home just down the road from Roger’s mother’s place! I felt a sharp pang of national pride. So it might have been given away fair and square to the Met, but all the same . . .

  ‘I came here,’ Jonathan went on, ‘wondering if I was doing the right thing, and I saw this bed and you know what? I thought of you.’

  ‘Steady on!’ I exclaimed in pretend horror.

  Jonathan squeezed. ‘No, silly. I came here because I missed you, and London, and everything. The comfort of it made me think of you, and how comfortable you made me feel, like I wanted to tumble you into a bed like this, and close the curtains around us, and keep all the rest of the world out. It was totally English – solidly made, and honest, and such a thing of beauty. Like a fairy-tale bed, but made to last. And see? It’s lasted five hundred years.’

  I held my breath, not quite sure where he was going with this.

  ‘Melissa,’ said Jonathan, turning me round to face him. His expression was completely serious, and I thought I could detect a glimmer of nerves in his eyes. ‘I didn’t believe I could ever be this happy. I want to draw those curtains around us for ever, if you’ll let me.’

  Then he hitched up one leg of his dinner trousers, dropped to one knee and looked up at me from the floor. ‘I appreciate that I should run this past your father first, but he’s not answering his cell phone, and his secretary won’t tell me where he is. Your grandmother gave me the go-ahead, though. So, Melissa . . .’

  I swear I could not breathe, even if I wanted to.

  ‘. . . would you do me the great honour of becoming my wife?’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The tears had already started to slide down my face with giddy, champagne-bubble joy. I couldn’t believe it. Literally. I tried to absorb what Jonathan had just said, and I couldn’t make my brain acknowledge it was real. He was asking me to marry him!

  And if I needed physical evidence, he had a small ring-box in his hand, which he offered to me now.

  ‘It’s not the proper one,’ he said as I took it with shaky fingers, ‘because I know you’ll want to go and pick out something together, but I thought you’d, you know, like to have something to show off tonight.’

  I opened the old-fashioned blue leather box, and gasped when I saw the delicate little three-stone sapphire ring nestled in the worn red velvet. It glittered in the low light. It was beautiful.

  ‘My grandmother’s,’ he explained. ‘An eternity ring my grandfather gave her for their golden wedding.’

  Kind of confident of him to have the ring right there, observed a detached voice in my head.

  ‘Are you going to see if it fits?’ he prompted. ‘I can have it altered. That’s not a problem.’

  ‘But I haven’t said yes yet,’ I said with as much solemnity as I could muster.

  Panic widened Jonathan’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ I said, dropping to my knees too with absolutely no regard for my sheer tights. ‘Yes, of course, it’s yes!’

  ‘You don’t know how happy that makes me!’ he murmured as he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me.

  We must have been the only couple in history to be just engaged, next to a four-poster bed, and end up kissing passionately on the floor.

  I must admit, the way Jonathan kissed me, I didn’t really mind. He kissed the way men do in films: long, slow, deep kisses, always with his eyes closed.

  ‘Oh, Melissa,’ said Jonathan, helping me up to my feet when we’d kissed long enough for pins and needles to be setting in. ‘This is the best night of my life.’ He put his arms round me and stroked my hair. The museum was so vast that we couldn’t even hear the distant party noises. It
was just us, and the great bed of state.

  From that nice manor house down the road from Roger’s.

  I dragged my mind back to the present.

  Jonathan nuzzled my neck, breathing in my perfume. ‘This is the beginning of our life together! Isn’t it a great place to start it?’

  ‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘In an English room, in an American museum.’

  What was wrong with me? I frowned at myself.

  ‘You know,’ he mused, ‘I’ve thought about tonight so much, all the details . . .’

  ‘You didn’t think I’d say no, though, did you?’ I said indulgently.

  Jonathan looked blank for a second. ‘I was really meaning the fundraiser, but, um . . .’

  I stared at him, taken aback.

  ‘But yeah, of course I’ve been thinking about proposing to you too. I wasn’t sure, actually, that you’d say yes.’ He recovered quickly, but not quite quickly enough.

  ‘Well, I suppose tables and chairs are easier to arrange than people,’ I said, trying to make it come out lightly, but maybe I didn’t quite manage it.

  ‘Sometimes that’s easier on the nerves!’ said Jonathan, apparently missing the irony in my voice. He hugged me to him, so my nose filled up with the heady mix of Creed and laundered shirts and his own indefinable man smell, then released me with a broad smile.

  ‘Listen, we should be getting back to the party. They’re going to start calling everyone in for dinner very soon and I want to . . . you know.’ He grinned. ‘Tell people. Shall we . . . ?’

  He extended a hand towards the door, and, automatically, I led the way out.

  ‘So, when can you get your things shipped?’ he asked, putting his arm around my waist as we walked back through the drawing room. Our footsteps rang loudly on the wooden floor. ‘Everything’s in storage, right? You could just get it sent straight over from the holding company.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I suppose I could.’

  Not go back to Nelson’s? At all?

  ‘And then there’s your agency to deal with, I guess,’ he went on, now in full organisational flow. ‘It seems to be running pretty well with Gabi and Allegra in charge, wouldn’t you say? You feel happy letting those two carry on? Just keep an eye on them via email?’