Debutantes: In Love

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Let’s have the men in ordinary clothes,’ said Baz, flushing slightly. ‘I hate fancy dress. Feel such a fool.’

  ‘Men look great in ordinary evening dress,’ agreed Daisy, thinking of filming. The men in black and white looked so good in her films.

  ‘Girls can dress up,’ said Joan firmly. ‘My dears, I’d so love a sari.’

  ‘What about having a theme of the nine jewels of India: diamond, ruby, emerald, coral, pearl, sapphire, garnet, topaz and cat’s eye – you know that greeny-goldy stuff . . . chrysoberyl,’ said Daisy, remembering the glorious necklace Fred had made for her film from bits of coloured glass and wire painted gold. ‘That would mean that people who liked veils and saris could wear those and others could just come in jewel colours. We could put that on the invitation cards.’ Thinking of Fred and his clever fingers and inventiveness gave her another idea. ‘What would you think of using the backdrop boards from my film – Fred has done some magnificent ones – the Taj Mahal and everything.’

  ‘Potted palms,’ said Joan, as one inspired.

  ‘Spotted leopards,’ said Rose, not to be outdone, and then added dreamily, ‘Could I be part of the background, heavily veiled, of course?’ She gazed up at Daisy with pleading eyes.

  ‘Why not?’ said Daisy, making a note that she would be firm with Elaine and Jack about this. She wanted her little sister at this special ball. After all, the Duchess of Denton had a ‘nursery party’ at her eldest daughter’s coming-out dance. Rose was tall for her age and no one would question her presence.

  At that moment there was a flash of white light and a popping sound – a sound very familiar to Daisy. Someone had taken a photograph. She turned around quickly to see a man in a belted raincoat, with a trilby soft hat pulled down over his eyebrows, just escaping from the icecream parlour. He held a large camera. Poppy and Baz were blinking in from the explosion of light.

  ‘The beast!’ said Joan. ‘He just took the back of my head. How too, too sick-making . . . But I am pleased for you two, my dears.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Thursday 1 May 1924

  ‘I do so love your study, Jack,’ said Rose with a very serious face. ‘It reminds me of that chapter in Kim when they are getting ready to put down the Indian rising. All those lists of tasks and telephone numbers and names of useful people. And the countdown calendar! A Military Manoeuvres Board, that’s what it is. It’s absolutely wonderful!’

  ‘Now then, young lady,’ said Jack. He said it with a grin though. Poppy annoyed him with her intensity and her stubbornness, thought Daisy, but Rose’s quick wits brought a reluctant smile to his face. An intelligent man, he would have been bored by this holiday in London if he had not had The Ball to organize. He had got a carpenter to cover the whole of one wall of his study with a soft board and by now it was completely filled with sheets of paper, large and small, with tradesmen’s cards, lists of names and hand-coloured postcards of India. He had been hugely enthusiastic about the Indian theme and had come up with lots of good ideas of his own. Clear and succinct instructions about dress and the significance of the ‘Nine Jewels of India’ had been sent out with every invitation. He had personally checked every one of Fred’s backdrops and allocated each an appropriate place in the Ritz ballroom.

  Now he looked appraisingly at the plan of the ballroom, added a series of small oblongs, marked them as ‘Champagne Tables’ and then stood back and gazed at his board, full of thought.

  ‘You know, Rose,’ he said, ‘Napoleon had small models of all the notables at his court and he used to get the court dressmakers to make outfits for them; then when he saw how they looked in groups, he used to inform them what colours they were to wear to his next party. I’m beginning to feel a little like him.’ He laughed, quick to see the ridiculous side of his obsession, but yet determined to make a huge success of this ball.

  ‘Did he really, how wonderful! I must tell my history teacher about that. So much more fun than learning about the Battle of Salamanca. I shall have to get two little dolls and call them Poppy and Daisy. And there was I feeling sad that I had passed the age to play with dolls.’

  ‘I like the countdown calendar,’ said Daisy, looking up at the impressive sheet that took up a large portion of the board. The months of April and May had been ruled out into boxes – each day had its own box where tasks could be inserted and two dates had huge stars – one for their presentation on the twentieth of May and the other one, coming excitingly close, for their ball on the eighth. Jack was consulting his notebook and putting a neat tick before each task that had already been done.

  ‘Why do you have those six capital Ts in a row beside the plan of the ballroom, Jack?’ Daisy didn’t care much, but she knew that he was pleased at her interest and it was, she thought, kind of him to go to so much trouble.

  ‘They’re for the telephones in the press room.’ His face lit up with pleasure at her question. ‘You see, the one thing these reporter Johnnies hate is having to queue for a telephone box. Puts them right off what they want to say. I’ve made sure that there will be plenty of phones available – each with their own table – and they’re all in the press room – a tray of drinks in there too. The manager of the Ritz,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘was very struck by the idea. I’d take a bet that he will do it in the future for all the top balls and events.’

  ‘A press room!’ Rose’s voice was reverential. ‘Oh, I say, how wonderful.’

  ‘Yes, and the manager promised me that he would make sure that there will be plenty of jotters and sheets of paper, pencils, rubbers on each of the tables – all that sort of thing.’

  ‘Dickens himself could not have asked for more,’ Rose assured him. ‘I remember reading about his desk – ah, me, if ever I could aspire to such a thing . . .’

  ‘And the tray of drinks will put them all in a great mood,’ said Daisy.

  ‘I thought that was a good idea,’ said Jack with a pleased smile. He seized a pair of library steps, clambered up them and added a label that said ‘Press Room’ beside the row of telephones. Then, looking from his pocketbook to the board, he began to tick off completed tasks.

  ‘Rose, dear,’ he said, without looking around, ‘could you pop into the morning room and remind your aunt that the girls have the final fitting of their ball gowns today?’

  ‘Salaam, sahib,’ said Rose, touching her folded hands to her brow and then dancing off. Elaine would have all the magazines in the morning room and that would give her more fun than trying to tease the imperturbable Sir John.

  Jack waited until she had closed the door behind her and then, after putting a last tick opposite the words ‘floral decorations’, he came down from his steps and looked closely at Daisy.

  ‘How are you and Charles getting on?’ he asked with his usual directness.

  Daisy smiled to herself at the question. She and Charles were almost like a modern married couple now, going off to work every day. And success was coming her way, with Sir Guy selling her film about the chickens almost as soon as she had completed it. She raised an eyebrow at Jack, trying to move just one of them in that way Joan did so expertly.

  ‘Well. Very well.’ She tried to convey that it was none of his business, but he ignored that.

  ‘Not getting too serious, are you? You see . . .’

  But then he was interrupted. Tellford was at the door with a list of champagne providers, and while they began an earnest conversation Daisy escaped, saying hastily that she had to remind Poppy about the appointment with the dressmaker. She didn’t want to hear what Jack had to say. He wasn’t too keen on Charles, she thought. Elaine had confided in her that Jack had given up the idea of getting him a job at the Foreign Office since Charles was not willing to work his way up but seemed to want to start at the top.

  ‘If he has pots of money, why should he bother being a message boy for some big shot?’ said Poppy when Daisy told her. She seemed to think that Charles was quite right not to do something that would bo
re him. Neither she nor Baz would ever dream of doing something that bored them.

  Daisy tried to tell herself that this made sense, but she was worried that Charles might be depending on being a success in the film world.

  Poppy and Baz both had great musical talent, but Charles . . .

  ‘He’ll never make a star,’ Sir Guy had said to Daisy a few days earlier. ‘He might get a few walk-on parts, or crowd scenes, but he’s never going to make a living out of it. I’m afraid that he’s like your sister – just can’t act. Is he thinking of going back to India? He might be better off doing something back there. He must have picked up some skills over the last few years. Perhaps not the Indian Police, but something in the commercial line . . . Has he any thoughts about what he’s going to do? ’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Daisy. She pretended to sound indifferent, but she felt rather troubled. Charles had no interest in India, no interest in producing films either; he wanted to be in front of the camera, not behind it. Sir Guy was waiting for her to say something, to agree with him, to decide to drop this film about the rajah and the girl, but she bit her lip and said nothing. How could she drop it without talking to Charles first?

  I must speak to him, she thought. It’s not fair on Sir Guy to use any more of his resources on this film. He had faith in the other short film that she was gradually putting together, about the Bright Young People, but none in the Indian film. Something had to be said, and she was the one who had to say it.

  And now, when she had a couple of hours before the dressmaker appointment, was the time to do it.

  Quickly she grabbed her coat from the hallstand and slipped out of the front door, closing it very softly behind her and crossing the road.

  ‘I’m not sure if he’s up yet, my lady,’ said the housemaid who opened the door. ‘Lady Cynthia is out. Will you wait in the morning room?’

  Daisy was pleased that Lady Cynthia was not there. She was a strange woman; had been effusively friendly for a while, but now seemed to be rather cold and distant. She sat down without taking off her coat. The room was cold, quite unlike the house across the road, where she continually felt too hot. Although it was almost eleven o’clock the fire had not been lit. She glanced at the invitations on the mantelpiece – Charles seemed very popular; there were lots of invitations for him – including one to a ‘Bottle & Bath’ party from Annette, which made Daisy open her eyes rather widely.

  It was while she was gazing at the card that Charles opened the door and came in, looking very spruce and well groomed.

  ‘I wondered if you would like a walk,’ she said. She could hear the words coming out rather abruptly, but she didn’t care. She needed to be alone with him. There always seemed to be people around them. ‘Let’s go down by the river,’ she suggested.

  ‘Yes, let’s,’ he said eagerly, and she was touched to see how much he wanted to please her.

  On the way down they chatted about the ball and Daisy told him about Sir John’s Military Manoeuvres Board. That did not make him laugh, as she had intended, and he looked at her rather uncomfortably.

  ‘Did he tell you that I didn’t want that job that he found me?’ he said after a minute. ‘You see—’

  ‘You don’t need to explain it to me,’ she interrupted him quickly.

  ‘I knew you’d understand.’ He looked down at her with glowing eyes. ‘You see, I want to put everything into supporting you, making films with you and helping you in every way that I can.’

  He looked so wonderfully handsome as he said that. Daisy looked up at him, wondering what he meant. It sounded almost as though he was seeing a future for them as a couple – but perhaps he just meant a professional alliance. And then he gave a quick look around, bent over and kissed her. ‘I can’t resist you when you look like that,’ he said softly. ‘You know, you have the loveliest eyes. I used to dream of blue eyes like yours when I was out in India and homesick for England.’ He looked around and steered her towards a bench sheltered behind a large bush of orange blossom. When they sat down, he put an arm around her and pulled her close to him and she put her head down on his shoulder.

  She couldn’t, she thought, talk now about abandoning the film. After all, she told herself, neither Charles nor Violet were being paid for their work – they had both been told that any payment would come as a percentage once the film was sold. Fred had already done all the work on the backdrops so now it was really only a matter of her own time and small amounts of processing materials. Sir Guy wouldn’t press her.

  While Charles was murmuring into her ear dreams about their own studio and about the films that they would make in the future, she could not possibly come back down to earth and be sensible. After all, she tried to tell herself, Elaine had said that he was rich, so he didn’t need to make a living.

  And the smell from the orange blossom was intoxicating.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thursday 8 May 1924

  Anything could happen to a person wearing a dress like this, thought Daisy as she gazed into the full-length mirror in her room. This electric light was wonderful, she thought. Its warm, even glow lit up the girl who faced her from the sparkling glass. A short girl, though looking divinely slim in the well-cut dress, a girl with large blue eyes, a smooth, shining cap of blonde hair that hung around a porcelain-pale face, lips delicately pink; a girl clothed in a gown made from silver lamé, spangled with tiny diamonds, fitted closely to her figure in the front, barely reaching to her knees and billowing out behind into ankle-length gleaming folds.

  ‘What do you think?’ Daisy met her mother’s eyes in the mirror and was glad that Maud had gone to do Poppy’s hair and that they were alone for the moment. Tears ran down Elaine’s cheeks.

  ‘My darling, you look wonderful. The most beautiful girl in the world.’ She laughed shakily. ‘I want to squeeze you in my arms, but I daren’t touch such perfection. Now I must fly. Jack will wonder what’s happening to me. He does so want everything to be perfect tonight.’

  And then she was gone. Daisy took one last look at herself and then went into Poppy’s bedroom. Poppy was still in a wrapper. Maud was just undoing an elaborate hairstyle where Poppy’s long hair had been braided and tucked under to give it the appearance of a fashionable bob.

  ‘I’ve decided to wear it loose – Baz likes it better down,’ Poppy explained as Daisy came in. ‘Is Jack jumping up and down waiting for me?’ she went on. ‘You look lovely, doesn’t she, Maud?’

  ‘Elaine has only just gone to get dressed,’ said Daisy. She watched as Maud brushed out the long red hair and decided that Poppy was right. Short hair might be more fashionable, but Poppy’s rippling dark red mane was so striking that it was a shame to hide it. Maud tied it loosely with a piece of silk while she slipped the dress over Poppy’s head, freed the hair, adjusted the dress and then stood back to see the effect.

  Poppy’s gown was of gold lamé, embroidered all over with dozens of tiny green chrysoberyls, the cat’s eye jewel – one of the nine jewels of India. It was short and made quite simply, figure-fitting and without frills. The sumptuous simplicity suited Poppy and highlighted the beauty of her hair. And the headband of gold lamé, embroidered with more chrysoberyls, made her amber eyes glow.

  ‘You’re beautiful!’ They said it in unison and then both laughed. Maud slipped out of the room to fetch Rose and soon returned with her, looking exquisite in a coral-pink dress and with her long blonde hair floating out behind her.

  ‘Girls! We’re off. The taxi is here. It’s waiting for you!’ Jack had an unusually tense note in his voice.

  ‘Wish Morgan was taking us,’ grumbled Poppy. ‘Why does Jack have to monopolize him?’

  ‘He’s only being kind,’ said Daisy swiftly. ‘He thinks we’ll have more room for our frocks in a taxi. That’s what he said.’

  Jack, she thought, couldn’t wait to get to the Ritz and make sure that every one of his meticulous arrangements was going with a swing.

  ‘We’d be
tter go,’ she said. ‘We need to be there first so that we can receive the guests. It’s our party, after all.’

  Sir John and Elaine were already in position by the time they arrived. Rose, who had been warned to stay in the background, went off to see the press room and they took their places beside the couple, he in his superb uniform and Elaine wearing a glorious gown of black velvet trimmed with gold embroidery. The cloak, which formed part of the gown, fell behind her, and at the back of her slender neck a large, stiffened collar of the dark velvet rose up to form a frame to her blonde hair, her pale skin and her blue eyes. She looked tiny but dignified beside her distinguished husband.

  ‘Poppy next to me, I think; and Daisy next to Elaine.’ He looked along the line and nodded with satisfaction. It was a good arrangement, thought Daisy. Ever since she had found out that she was not Poppy’s twin, not her sister, she had been slightly self-conscious about the lack of resemblance between them. Standing side by side, they looked odd – one tall redhead; one small blonde.

  Now with Poppy beside Sir John and she beside Elaine, they looked interesting.

  ‘First taxis drawing up now, Your Excellency.’ The manager approached Sir John, casting a last professional look around the ballroom.

  Everything was splendid, thought Daisy. The Indian backdrops, painted by Fred, had been attached to the Ritz’s own screens and the spaces between had potted palms placed at wide intervals, allowing those who sat on the gilt chairs to have a clear view of the ballroom. The ceiling was hung with chandeliers whose warm light enhanced the gold paint on the stately columns and the mouldings along the wall. The Ritz’s own orchestra played gentle music – the jazz band would come at nine o’clock. She straightened up to greet the first guests: His Excellency, the High Commissioner, Sir Atul Chandra Chatterjee and his British-born wife, from the Indian Embassy in London.