Happy Ever After

by Christina Jones

  I couldn’t say I blamed her.

  I was still congratulating myself on having a disaster-free meal, as Sir Barnaby made a jovial speech following the pudding, with champagne and lots of laughing.

  ‘Now,’ Sir Barnaby beamed, ‘the serious business of the night… The dancing. If you’d like to make your way through to the conservatory, the band will start playing in five minutes.’

  Must be a really big conservatory, I thought, amid the chair-scraping, thinking of our tiny lean-to back home. I pushed my chair back, searching for Fi, then realised the hem of my purple dress was caught beneath the legs.

  I leaned down in a surreptitious attempt to tug it free.

  As the chair legs slithered away backwards I grabbed hold of the nearest solid object, did a neat back-flip, and landed on my bottom.

  Drew Flanagan – the solid object – let out a howl of pain as my purple barrette caught in his hair and my fingernails found purchase in his hand.

  ‘Are you okay?’ his voice was about an inch from my ear as he helped me to my feet. ‘And how the heck do you unfasten this thing?’

  We were still locked together, head-to-head, by the purple barrette, leaning across the table. Oh, but close-to he was absolutely stunningly handsome…

  Mercifully everyone else, including the lovely Lindy, had disappeared, but I was still crimson with humiliation.

  ‘I’ll do it…’ Desperately embarrassed, I wrenched at the comb and managed to separate it from Drew. ‘There!’

  ‘Ouch!’ Drew winced, then his gorgeous eyes softened. ‘Don’t look so upset – no-one noticed – oh, you’re not crying, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I sniffed as my carefully-coiffed hair collapsed, peering at him through my tousled mane. ‘Thank you – and I’m sorry..’

  Stiffly, I replaced my chair and pushed my hair away from my face.

  Drew smiled. Even his smile was devastating. ‘You don’t need that comb thing in your hair anyway. It looks lovely as it is…’

  ‘Please don’t think you have to be nice to me,’ I grabbed at mum’s silver bag. ‘I’m not used to any of this and I really sorry that I hurt you. Thank you again…’

  Despite my assurances to Drew, my eyes were filled with tears, so I quickly turned and strode away from the table. Hoping that no-one had noticed the debacle, I stumbled slightly on the unfamiliar heels, but for me, it was a reasonably dignified exit.

  I sniffed a bit more and scanned the sea of faces for Fi, but couldn’t see anyone I recognised. Hitching my purple skirt up inelegantly, I staggered away from the scene of my humiliation, cannoning off couples all heading for the conservatory like some demented pinball machine.

  I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I just needed to nurse my shame in private. Why had I ever thought that a tomboy like me could turn into a lady simply by adding a bit of glitz and a charity shop dress?

  Out in the black and white hall the lights still twinkled, but the magic was tarnished. I wanted to go home.

  ‘Is there a phone, please?’ I asked a middle-aged lady in gold sequins who was massaging her feet at the bottom of the glorious twisting staircase. ‘I didn’t bring my mobile and – ‘

  She smiled kindly up at me. ‘There’s a phone on the upper landing.’

  ‘Great. Thanks. Oh, and is there a place to pay? I can’t see Sir Barnaby being thrilled at having to fund all his employees’ phone calls…’

  ‘Most of them have mobiles these days,’ the woman flexed her toes, ‘so the matter rarely arises. And as I’m Sir Barnaby’s wife, you have my permission to use the phone for nothing.’

  ‘Are you? Really? Wow – I mean… thank you. And this house is wonderful – and the party is brilliant - but, I’m sorry, I’ve never met you – you must think I’m very rude…’

  ‘Not at all,’ she beamed. ‘Why should you know me? I’m Anne, by the way, and I never go to any of the Ruscombes work places – mainly because I can’t stand playing Lady Bountiful.’

  ‘I’m Josie from accounts.’

  Lady Ruscombe beamed. ‘I was Anne from the typing pool when I met Barnaby – who was working his way up the family ladder in engineering. Old Cecil believed in the heirs working for their living.’

  Lady Ruscombe, once Anne from the typing pool, didn’t seem at all intimidating.

  She slid her feet back into her sandals. ‘And, Josie from accounts, have you had a row with your young man? Is that why you need a phone?’

  ‘No,’ I muttered, gathering the purple velvet dress even higher prior to my attempt to scale the staircase, ‘I haven't got a young man. I just need a taxi to go home – I – er – don’t feel very well…’

  ‘Shame,’ Lady Anne eased herself to her feet, ‘and before the dancing, too. Nice to have met you, though, my dear.’

  ‘And you,’ I sort of curtseyed because she was a titled lady after all, ‘and thank you again…’

  As I puffed onwards and upwards, I soon realised the staircase was far more Tensing and Hillary than Rhett and Scarlett. It was also very vertigo-inducing as all the treads were transparent and I got dizzying glimpses of the Hickory House’s chequerboard hall floor each time I turned a corner.

  Then I realised I was being followed.

  Drew Flanagan was making the ascent behind me.

  ‘Josie,’ he puffed, looking up at me from two swirls below. ‘Please stop. We have to talk.’

  ‘No we haven’t. I’m so sorry that I hurt you, but I’ve already apologised and I’m very grateful that you didn’t make a fuss but – ‘

  ‘I don’t want an apology. I want to ask you to dance with me.’

  ‘Dance?’ Was he mad? ‘You’re heading in the wrong direction for the dancing. And what about your girlfriend?’

  ‘Girlfriend?’ Drew hauled himself up to my level. The devastating eyes crinkled. ‘Oh, do you mean Lindy Smith? She was with the man on her other side – although for how much longer I couldn’t hazard a guess. I came alone.’

  ‘But you can’t want to dance with me – not after what I did…’

  Drew laughed. ‘Stop looking so fierce. And please stop apologising. It was a wonderfully original way of – er – getting to know one another. And as I’m really shy and get pretty tongue-tied at events like this, it was a life-saver for me.’

  Inside, my heart gave a little skippety-skipp of joy; outwardly I simply surveyed him, steadily. I really hoped he was telling the truth. I also needed time to get my breath back.

  ‘Why are we up here anyway?’ Drew frowned. ‘I just saw your frock disappearing and followed, but I’m not sure why you were – oh! You weren’t trying to escape from me, were you?‘

  ‘No!’ I looked at him in disbelief. Why would anyone want to run away from him? Surely someone as gorgeous as him wasn’t as equally lacking in self-confidence as I was, were they? ‘Actually, I was looking for a phone. To call a taxi. To go home. Because I’d made such an idiot of myself.’

  ‘Oh, good – no, I don’t mean because you were going home, I mean I’m just so glad it wasn’t me. And at least I caught you before you made the call,’ Drew looked more cheerful. ‘So – shall we? Go downstairs and into the conservatory – which is about the size of a football pitch – for the dancing?’

  ‘I’m not very good at dancing…’

  ‘Me neither. But if you don’t mind having your toes trodden on…’

  I smiled. ‘It’s the very least I deserve after tearing out your hair and removing your skin at dinner.’

  We grinned at each other and I suddenly felt quite dizzy. And it had absolutely nothing to do with the spiral staircase…

 

 

 
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