The Proposal

by Tasmina Perry

  ‘You know your stuff,’ said Amy, sipping her water uncomfortably. ‘French. Wine. The only stuff I know is from that scene in Pretty Woman where the manager teaches Julia Roberts to count the prongs.’

  Georgia raised one thin grey brow. ‘I saw that film too, and believe me, there’s a lot more to it than counting the prongs. We had weeks studying at finishing school – and I do mean studying.’

  ‘You went to finishing school?’ asked Amy, wide-eyed.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘In the Alps?’ She had read and reread Lace, and that bit at the beginning – where the girls were sashaying around L’Hirondelle drinking hot chocolate and fraternising with princes – was her favourite part.

  ‘No, I went to Paris,’ said Georgia. ‘Madame Didiot’s School for Girls. Going to Paris to finish was considered quite a smart choice. Although my mother didn’t have a bean, there was a small trust fund put to one side for my education.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Amy. ‘Is that where you learnt about wine?’

  ‘A little. I didn’t want to go to finishing school and I wasn’t a particularly good student, as Madame Didiot would certainly have confirmed. But wine I enjoyed. I probably drank too much of it in the eighties. I think most publishers of a certain age would say that.’

  Georgia had ordered for them both, and when the starters arrived, Amy picked at hers.

  ‘So if you didn’t want to be at finishing school, why did you go?’

  ‘Because I had to. Because I was going to be a deb.’

  ‘Deb?’

  The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘A debutante. The point of the finishing school was to prepare a young lady for her “coming out”, when she would be presented to Her Majesty the Queen as a girl worthy of English society. And it wasn’t a matter of simply turning up and curtseying properly; there was a whole season of events, parties and functions where the proper young lady would be expected to behave impeccably in every situation. And by that, I mean behave impeccably around young men. Because of course that was the real point of the debutante system: to produce good little wives for the next generation of upper-class men.’

  ‘So is that what Madame Didiot taught you? How to talk to men?’ asked Amy, smiling. She wished they’d had a few of those lessons at Kelsey High in Queens, where she had been so painfully shy she had broken out in a neck rash whenever certain members of the football team spoke to her.

  ‘Amongst other things,’ Georgia said as she took a sip of her wine. ‘Deportment, place settings, flower arranging, grooming, musical appreciation, public speaking . . . it was endless. And I have to say, at the time I rebelled against it; I could see no point in any of it. But now? Well, maybe it’s just an old woman looking at the world with jaded eyes, but now I don’t think teaching young people manners is the worst thing in the world.’

  ‘Did you find him?’

  ‘Who?’ asked Georgia, sliding her knife into her lamb.

  ‘A husband?’

  Georgia was silent for one moment.

  ‘I did marry. But not to someone I met during the Season.’

  ‘Are you still together?’ She chose her words carefully. She had been in Georgia’s almost constant company for over twelve hours, and yet she had found out very little about her.

  ‘It was a short marriage. Philip and I divorced many years ago, although we remained friends until he passed away two years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Still,’ said Georgia more breezily, ‘there were things I learnt in Paris and during my season which were invaluable later on, certainly when I became chief executive of my own company in the seventies. In those days it was rather unusual for a woman to attain such lofty heights. There were times when I was patronised, ignored, belittled and even threatened just for being a woman. But because of my background, I knew that I could compete at every level. I was as educated, as cultured, as well informed as even the most pompous fat cat I came up against, and looking back, finishing school was one of the things that helped me fill up my arsenal.’

  Ten minutes ago, Amy would have thought that learning how to curtsey was a relic best left in the past, but Georgia didn’t make it sound too bad at all.

  ‘Do they still exist? Finishing schools?’

  ‘Why, are you thinking of going?’ replied Georgia with a tight smile.

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘You’ll be hard pushed to find any around today. Traditional Swiss finishing schools were phased out years ago. I’m not sure it sits very well with the modern age, does it? Nowadays people believe in equality.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘I believe in a meritocracy, not quite the same thing. Whoever’s best suited for a role, that’s who should fill that role. Now, some women are ideally suited to being surgeons, prime ministers and judges, but some are suited to being wives and mothers. I know it sounds old-fashioned to say so, but it’s the truth as I see it.’

  Amy laughed.

  ‘I know some feminists who would go purple at that idea.’

  ‘And that is the tragic thing. Feminism was all about giving women choice – if they choose to become a brain surgeon, they should be able to. All well and good. But if a woman chooses to stay at home and raise children – or indeed, stand around at cocktail parties making riveting small talk – that should be equally acceptable, shouldn’t it? In my humble opinion, feminists can sometimes be too judgemental.’

  Amy looked at Georgia more closely. She had clearly underestimated this woman on almost every level. Suddenly the trip had become much more interesting, and she found that she wanted to know everything that Georgia Hamilton knew.

  ‘And the Season. I suppose that’s finished too.’

  ‘I was the last crop, actually. Princess Margaret famously said, “Every tart in London is getting in,” which was rather the death knell for the institution, I’m afraid. There are still all sorts of formal balls for girls who want that kind of thing. Or more usually, if their parents do; it’s still about meeting the right sort of boy. The Crillon Ball in Paris, for example, that’s quite lovely – although I believe nowadays they are attended by lots of rock stars’ daughters. So yes, getting presented in front of the Queen was abolished in 1958, the year I came out. Quite a watershed year it turned out to be, in fact,’ she added, sipping her Sauvignon.

  ‘I thought the sixties was when it all changed. Miniskirts, the pill . . .’

  ‘The sixties was the start of the sexual revolution. I believe Philip Larkin once wrote that it started between the end of the Lady Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP. But society was changing long before that. At the start of the fifties your average young person dressed like their parents, but by ’58 there was rock and roll, Teddy boys, race riots, coffee bars – it was the birth of the teenager; certainly the first time anyone really thought of young people as being different.’

  Amy started to laugh, thinking of her dad working in his garage, his old Elvis songs turned up so loud that it made the workbench shake.

  ‘My dad says the world changed because of Elvis.’

  Georgia gave a wry smile.

  ‘Typical of you Americans, wanting to take credit for everything. But perhaps you’re right. I think the truth is we were ready for change. Things were moving fast. Modern history certainly sees 1958 as a momentous year.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Georgia nodded, her eyes taking on a distant look.

  ‘It was certainly a summer I’ll remember,’ she said quietly.

  March 1958

  ‘Ah, London. I smell it in the air, darling,’ said Estella Hamilton, opening the window of the train carriage and pushing her long copper-coloured hair off her shoulders as if she were a great theatrical diva preparing for her encore.

  ‘About time too,’ muttered her daughter Georgia, seeing nothing but grey concrete buildings, factories and the backs of thin, tired-looking terraced houses. It had been a long, dull journey from Devon, made even
more tiresome by multiple mysterious stops, and she was desperate for a cigarette. She still had a healthy supply of Gauloises, stockpiled at the Gare du Nord, in her trunk, which was not two minutes away in the luggage compartment. But liberal as her mother was, Georgia did not think she would understand her eighteen-year-old daughter’s need for nerve-calming nicotine. In fact Estella didn’t really seem to understand anything about her eighteen-year-old daughter any more.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, looking over at her daughter with suspicion.

  ‘I just wish I was going back to Paris,’ said Georgia as a series of images popped into her mind like a technicolour montage designed to torment her. Handsome men writing poetry in streetside cafés, girls in stripy sweaters riding their bikes along the Seine, stern-looking women dressed in fur stoles buying duck and macaroons from the smart stores on the Rue Saint-Honoré, and fashion shoots at the Eiffel Tower. The City of Light was a city of constant beauty and wonder, and Georgia wished more than anything that she was still there.

  ‘And what would you do in Paris?’ asked Estella, not unkindly.

  ‘I want to write. You know that.’

  ‘And how will you earn money until you get something published?’

  ‘You were in Paris at my age and you managed.’

  ‘That was different. I went to model.’

  ‘Maybe I could make some money that way?’ It was not something she had dared voice to her mother before. Although she found the idea of posing in front of a photographer for hours on end quite boring and silly, Georgia had always loved hearing Estella’s stories about her own youthful adventures in France. The daughter of two trapeze artists, Estella had never been under any pressure to conform. Too small – and some would say too interesting-looking – for the fashion world, she had been a successful model for some of the biggest artists of the time, including Rodin and Picasso, watching, observing, until she moved back to England and started painting and sculpting herself.

  ‘You want to model?’ she said with surprise.

  ‘Everyone says we look alike.’

  Georgia watched her mother’s face and wondered if Estella would take that comment as an insult. Although she had turned forty three weeks earlier, there was no denying that her mother was still beautiful – her hair fell in long russet curls down her slim back, her face a riot of unblemished skin and angles. There were similarities between mother and daughter – the bright, alert green eyes, and the wide mouth with lips the colour of rose petals – but people were being kind when they said that they looked like twins.

  ‘Darling, you are a beautiful girl, but you don’t have the neck to model.’

  ‘What’s my neck got to do with being a good model?’

  Estella came to sit beside her and stroked her daughter’s dark blond bobbed hair.

  ‘I know you’re nervous about the Season, but there is no need to be so uptight,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘The next few months are going to be fun. I mean, you said you were dreading going to finishing school, and look how much you enjoyed that.’

  ‘I enjoyed Paris, not wasting my time flower arranging and learning how to eat an orange with a knife and fork.’

  A blast of wind blew in from the open window, making Georgia shiver.

  ‘Mother, I don’t know what’s got into you. This whole debutante thing is so unlike you. You were a free spirit, a bohemian. I just don’t understand why you are making me do something you would have hated yourself at my age.’

  ‘Darling, we’ve been through this.’

  ‘And you haven’t listened to a word I’ve got to say about it.’

  ‘I have listened, my darling. I understand that you want to be a writer. I understand that you want to live in some charming little garret on the Rive Gauche. I understand it all. Because it’s me. I have felt it, I have done it.’

  She shifted her position and looked her daughter directly in the eyes.

  ‘I know you are a little embarrassed by me sometimes. I know you think I can be away with the fairies. But I am a practical woman. I don’t want to live like this any more. You might not have the height or the neck to model, but you are a beautiful young girl. You can make a good marriage, and believe me, your dreams of becoming a writer are much more likely to be within your reach if you have the cushion of financial security.’

  The train chugged to a halt at Paddington station with a long whistle and the ear-piercing screech of brakes against iron. Georgia knew there was no point in arguing any further. No point complaining that she felt like a fatted cow being sent off to market – or should that be a lamb sent to the slaughter? They were flat broke. Her fate was sealed: she was to go along with her mother’s plan to find her a suitable husband.

  Estella treated them to a taxi from the station and Georgia pressed her nose up against the glass as it weaved through the streets of London. The journey from Devon had been over six hours long. It was almost dark now, and the city was retreating into a series of lights and shadows beyond the rain-speckled window of the cab. Despite her protestations on the train, Georgia had nothing against London. She did not consider it as beautiful or romantic as Paris, which had escaped the wartime bombing, but it was hard not to feel a thrill as she saw Hyde Park, and the Dorchester Hotel twinkling in the dusk.

  Their destination was the home of her aunt Sybil and uncle Peter, who lived in a handsome white mews house behind Pimlico Road. As the taxi stopped outside and their trunks were unloaded, Georgia took a moment to admire its polished stone steps and shiny front door.

  Sybil and Peter’s uniformed housekeeper welcomed them at the door as Sybil swept down the staircase behind her.

  Georgia had not seen her aunt since the previous summer and thought she had aged considerably since then. She did not know Sybil’s precise age but she guessed it was around forty-five. Certainly in her formal dress, string of pearls around her neck and completely grey hair, she looked a decade older than Estella, who was wearing pink capri trousers, a turban hat and a long white jacket made of alpaca.

  ‘At last,’ said Sybil, kissing them both lightly on the cheek. ‘Come through,’ she added, spinning round so fast that the expensive-looking navy fabric of her dress made a swooshing sound.

  ‘Peter and Clarissa should be back any time. Mrs Bryant has prepared chicken for supper, but I suspect all you want now is a pot of tea.’

  Mrs Bryant, the housekeeper, hovered at the door and offered to take their coats.

  ‘You’ve done the house,’ said Estella.

  Georgia took a minute to glance around the room. If Sybil looked older since the last time she had been in London, then her house looked decidedly more modish. The stiff furniture and fusty antiques that seemed to belong in a Victorian parlour had all gone, and the new splashes of colour around the place appeared more suited to Estella’s style of decor.

  ‘I have just painted the chicken coop back at the farm this exact shade of fuchsia,’ said Estella, drifting a finger across a bright pink ottoman.

  ‘Really, how lovely,’ said Sybil, her expression at odds with her words. Georgia had often felt that her aunt and her mother had nothing in common whatsoever – Sybil’s background was as establishment as Estella’s was offbeat and bohemian. In fact it was Sybil’s position as the youngest daughter of the Honourable David Castlereagh that had afforded them such a comfortable home, not Uncle Peter’s Civil Service job in the Home Office.

  ‘I found a wonderful designer, David Hicks. He’s doing all the best people in London right now. So how was the journey?’ asked Sybil as a clock chimed five in the distance.

  ‘I can’t say I was sad to leave the farm,’ replied Estella, sitting down. ‘Winter has been brutal this year. Fifteen chickens died during a particularly cold snap. To avoid going the same way, I was eating dripping on toast just to get fat and insulate myself.’

  ‘I don’t know how you cope, living in the middle of nowhere,’ said Sybil with a dramatic sigh. ‘You should have moved back to
London years ago.’

  Georgia had to stop herself from nodding in agreement. She had recognised as soon as she returned home from Paris that the little pocket of Devon where she had grown up was beginning to lose its allure.

  ‘Perhaps. But I am an artist, and I need space and light. The farm is twice the size of this place, and if we moved to London we wouldn’t be able to afford a garage, let alone something with a studio and potter’s wheel. Besides, James would have wanted us to stay there.’

  ‘James would have wanted you to be comfortable, not eating goose fat to protect yourselves from hypothermia.’

  Georgia felt a wave of emotion at the mention of her father. He had died when she was only four years old, a victim of the war – a solicitor by trade, dispatched to the front line and killed in his foxhole in Normandy. Although she only had very vague recollections of him, Estella made sure that his presence was all around them at the farm. His fishing rods remained untouched in the hallway, photographs were displayed around the house, his books and papers were where he had left them in the study.

  Mrs Bryant came into the room and put a white china teapot in the middle of the table.

  ‘Sybil, I just want to say again how grateful we are to you for sponsoring Georgia,’ said Estella.

  Georgia almost snorted out loud. When Estella had first got it into her head that her daughter should do the Season, Georgia had been relieved to discover that not everyone was allowed to do it. You had to be presented at court by someone who had herself been a debutante, and traditionally this was supposed to be your mother. But Estella had learnt that there were ways around the system, and as Aunt Sybil had been a deb in the thirties – her debutante photograph sat for all to see on the new lacquered cabinet – it was decided that she should present Georgia, which had depressed Georgia for about a fortnight.

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Sybil, not entirely convincingly. ‘Although I have to say, Georgia, you are rather late arriving in London.’

  ‘I know. The train was very slow,’ she replied, sipping a glass of orange squash.