by Lucy Walker
The manager looked at the receptionist with growing admiration. He had been thinking of marrying her for quite a long time and he now knew his judgment in women was perfect. As soon as the dinner was over he would think about proposing. Well ‒ he might, anyway. He’d give it some thought. Nothing like two business heads in one business!
Even the members of the staff were peeping round corners and between palm fronds to see Mrs. Boyd make her appearance. They were not disappointed. The froufrou of silk and lace was straight out of the Edwardian era, but somehow Aunt Cassie had found in England, before she came to the far country, a maker to create a modern dress out of all this fussy material. The strings of beads and the ropes of chains were gone, but in their place was a beautiful necklace of pearls. Everyone was certain they were real and fabulous, but in truth they had come from Ciro’s.
‘Quite as good!’ Aunt Cassie said. ‘The only difference is that they aren’t rough on the teeth when you bite them. No one who is polite would dream of walking up and asking if he could bite my pearls. Not even in this age ‒ though upon my word the modern generation is capable of almost anything.’
She didn’t wear a tiara because she wasn’t, of course, a duchess at all. She did, however, wear a pearl-studded comb in a Spanish manner. It had the same effect.
For once the subtle differences that had always managed to separate Claire and Ann from one another had disappeared, all on account of Rankin Bassett. Each advised the other about dress and each helped to do the other’s hair so that each looked her most delightful best.
‘It’s for Aunt Cassie’s sake!’ Ann was at the mirror, gazing at herself in a simple straight dress that somehow, in the most secret and subtle way, showed her figure for the delightful thing it was. It had been a last-minute buy when she had left England. She had not worn it on the ship, nor had the chance since she had arrived in Australia.
She had been a little nervous of it, because she sensed what it did to her yet she could not explain it. It was all too simple. She wasn’t sure about it …
‘If you must know,’ Claire remarked, now that there was nothing to lose and she no longer had need to envy Ann’s closeness to Aunt Cassie, ‘that dress is heavenly. It gives you something. Chic? No. Possibilities! Something more, too. I think the French would be disgusting enough to call it Promise. You know, that’s a good idea for the name of a style. I must write to Hardy Amies and sell it to him. Do you suppose ideas are ever for sale?’
‘Heather says so. At a very high price on TV anyway.’
‘Heather is bringing a star actor from the studios. Did Aunt Cassie tell you? I believe he’s the big rave with all the teenagers. He’s going east into the big studios too. How do I look now that we have stopped talking about other people including you?’
‘Like you always do, wonderful ‒ only better, if such a thing is possible. All-white suits your fair hair, Claire.’
‘So pure,’ said Claire nonchalantly. ‘Like my thoughts about a certain gentleman called Rankin Bassett. Do you suppose he’s a millionaire, or only nearly one?’
‘It wouldn’t make much difference, would it? You couldn’t spend a million in a year, even if you tried, could you? Half would do, wouldn’t it?’
Claire wasn’t doing arithmetic at the moment, she was busy being certain her make-up was flawless.
The dinner-party was all that Aunt Cassie demanded and everything was provided that anyone could wish for. The table was candle-lit and the servants were soft-footed wraiths.
Lang Franklin’s handsomeness in his dinner jacket made Ann feel she could cry when he first came into the room with Mrs. Franklin. She took a drink from a waiter quickly and borrowed a cigarette from Ross so as not to be looking while Mrs. Boyd shook hands with Lang. Rankin Bassett was pretty super too, she thought, but only when you didn’t look at Lang.
Miss Devine was Mrs. Boyd’s secret guest and she came with one of Franklin’s departmental managers. They seemed to be such a cosy pair that Ann felt thrilled for them. If neither was the marrying kind, at least they had the kind of friendship that stood in good stead. Their baby was Franklin’s Pty. Ltd.
One of the elderly cousins from outback had come to escort Mrs. Franklin to the party.
Mrs. Boyd had declined to have an extra man invited to make the numbers even.
‘I shall sit at the head of my own table,’ she announced earlier. ‘I shall be host and hostess and say what I please whenever I like. One can never do that with a man who has proprietorial ideas at one’s side.’
She did sit at the head of the table when, after preliminary drinks and conversation, the guests were deployed in their places at the long board.
Though Ross was permitted to have Luie beside him, Rankin Bassett had Ann as his partner and was placed opposite Claire.
‘So that he can look at her,’ Mrs. Boyd said in a not-so-low whisper to Mrs. Franklin, who in the last few hours had miraculously had a change of heart about Claire. She still liked the girl, of course. But she had seen through her. She had confided this intelligence to Nellie, who was pleased, and said so. This was all on account of Claire’s sudden interest in the Bassett family.
Ann, with Rankin Bassett on one side of her and Ross Dawson on the other, found that she could not look across the table without meeting Lang Franklin’s eyes. She wondered why he looked at her … smiled that quizzical way every time she did inadvertently catch his eyes.
Was it the dress? The way her hair was done so that it fell in soft shining curves almost to her shoulders? Did it make her look too young? Had she back-combed it enough to give her a little height?
How did she look to him? She would have given her immortal soul to know.
Whatever was right or wrong with her appearance, every now and again he looked at her. Ann felt that though heaven was not far away she was sure its shores were never for her.
She had better concentrate on the food, and on her partners right and left.
At the dessert stage Aunt Cassie told her story ‒ fibbing a little so as not to give away the fact she had known all along the wrong girl had come to Australia. It was so much more dignified to appear to have forgotten certain things: a matter of trained diplomacy in social matters. She could have given Mrs. Franklin a few useful tips in that territory.
‘Claire and Ann were born in the same month,’ she said, cutting the skin from a peach, but making sure she was engaging everybody’s attention as she did so. ‘That’s why they’re the same age, of course. A matter of simple arithmetic, you will agree?’ She smiled round the table, loving the fact that every eye was on her and she was the centre of attention.
‘They were half a world apart, through no fault of their own. Claire’s parents were where they ought to be ‒ in England. Ann’s parents were in the Far East, where, alas! they caught a fatal fever, but I won’t spoil the dinner party by talking about that. Their fathers were my husband’s nephews and like all stupid men did not consult one another about names. However, as far as I was concerned, they were most complimentary in their choice ‒ though my husband Arthur, then alive, thought they were slightly demented. Steward, would you please bring the port! I’m sure the men would like to smoke. We’ll have coffee afterwards.’
Claire sighed with relief. Aunt Cassie might forget to go on with this silly story now there had been an interruption. It took quite a time passing the port, specially as Mrs. Boyd took the opportunity to remark that in her day the ladies would have left the table so that the men could tell stories not fit for their ears.
‘There is one thing I am modern about,’ Aunt Cassie said. ‘I refuse to be driven from my own table by a bottle of port.’
It was Lang Franklin who asked Aunt Cassie to go on with her story. He held his cigarette in one hand and the stem of his wineglass with the other. In the candlelight they looked such strong able hands: long and brown. Ann could not bear to look at them, though from where she sat she could not help seeing them. She was not listening to Aunt C
assie, only trying to avoid Lang’s eyes.
‘Oh yes. Where was I? At the point of birth,’ Mrs Boyd said. ‘Well, you see, they were both given the same name ‒ out of affection for me, of course. My name, in spite of that awful Cassie which springs to my nieces’ mouths every time they address me, is Claire-Ann. My nephew in India and my nephew in England both called their daughters Claire-Ann. So you see, kind friends gathered round this table, you have three Claire-Ann Boyds sitting with you. One is fair, one is dark and one is getting very old. Irrespective of colouring and age we have one thing in common. Our names.’
There was an exclamation of surprise and pleasure all round the table.
‘How charming!’ Mrs. Bassett said.
‘What a lovely idea!’ Mrs. Condon had tears of delight in her eyes to think that dear fascinating Mrs. Boyd should have had such a wonderful compliment paid to her. ‘Your nephews must have been very fond of you.’
Mrs. Franklin coughed nervously.
‘It must have been confusing at times …’
‘That, of course, was what their great-uncle Arthur, my late husband, predicted. “Nothing but confusion will come of this,” he said. As a matter of fact everything went on very simply, specially after Ann came to live with me. We simply reversed her name and she became Ann-Claire. I, alas, stayed Cassie, a most inelegant name.’
There was a tiny silence for a moment. Ann looked at the fruit on her plate, Claire looked apologetically at Rankin Bassett for fear he was bored. Lang Franklin watched Aunt Cassie’s face. Her shrewd old eyes met his, and held them. Some message seemed to pass between them, and he smiled.
‘Of course, there was occasional postal confusion,’ she went on. ‘Ann’s name was still officially Claire-Ann. Bank mail … her school certificate … occasional letters from particular persons like her old headmistress who did not brook with reversing names. And the taxation people, of course.’
That brought a laugh all round.
‘Occasionally Ann received an invitation meant for Claire ‒ and vice versa ‒ but generally those things were straightened out.’ Aunt Cassie pointedly dismissed this with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘I was the one who generally remembered whose friend was whose friend and which letter was meant for which cousin. There were one or two occasions when I forgot, of course. But who doesn’t forget at my age?’
She looked blandly round the table but did not let her glance rest on Mrs. Franklin’s face.
‘So there, you see, it’s quite a story. Ann is Claire and Claire is Ann, and I am both. Now it is someone else’s turn to tell us of some reminiscence. Mrs. Bassett, was your home built in pioneering days and did your forebears cross the bush in covered wagons as the Americans did? Please do tell us.’
‘May I say something first?’ Mrs. Franklin asked quietly.
Everyone turned to her.
‘Please do.’ Aunt Cassie was very polite about this.
‘It’s quite short,’ Mrs. Franklin said. ‘So I won’t be holding up Mrs. Bassett’s account of the family’s earlier days. They are most interesting, Mrs. Boyd ‒ I can tell you that in advance. For my short piece ‒ I want to say ‒ I’ve had two delightful girls from England to stay with me as my guests. I don’t mind which is Ann-Claire and which is Claire-Ann. They have both given me much pleasure. Now please do go on, Mrs. Bassett, or I shall be covering the Boyd family with confusion. A quite unforgivable thing to do, I’m sure.’
Ann’s face was suffused with colour but Claire looked gratified that the pleasure she had given to her hostess had been mentioned ‒ specially in front of the Bassett family.
Lang Franklin stubbed out his cigarette.
Ann did not look up once as Ross now began to whisper a tattle of amusing gossip in her ear.
‘That was a really fine effort, coming from Mrs. Franklin,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You know, Ann, that she expected Claire first and you next? But you’ve won her heart, poppet, so not to worry! She had a bee in her bonnet that Lang would fall only for a willowy blonde on account of Vera Sunderland who once ‒ ages back ‒ was a great friend of Lang’s. What the old girl didn’t know was that that was all there ever was to it. They were friends. Vera Sunderland was beautiful but too strong-minded a type for Lang. Where that master-mind is concerned he has to be the boss.’
‘What happened to her? Vera Sunderland, I mean,’ Ann whispered back. Mrs. Bassett had already begun her story.
‘She married a neighbouring station-owner who could lean on her, if you know what I mean. He needed mothering.’
Ann glanced sideways at Ross. ‘Such gossip!’ she said reprovingly but not without a smile. It might be gossip, but oh, what welcome gossip. So Lang was not a man haunted by fair elegance, after all!
Still she would not look up at him, but only at his hands, where they lay on the table outside the circle of candlelight. One hand was holding the stem of his wineglass and the other toying with a match that had fallen from the ashtray.
When they finally rose from the table and moved to the occasional easy-chairs at the end of the room, coffee and liqueurs were served. Meanwhile the waiters deftly and silently cleared the table, then moved it back so that the dance-floor was exposed for its rightful use.
Ann moved across to sit with her great-aunt.
‘Darling Aunt,’ she said. ‘It was a lovely party.’
‘Not the past tense, Ann!’ Mrs. Boyd said shortly. ‘The party has only just begun. Now you must dance. Do you know I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you dance? Well now, you must show me your very best. I’ve arranged with the orchestra to play something I’ll understand.’ The men were talking in a group by the palms while the ladies arranged themselves near their hostess. One or two came back from tidying their several heads of hair in the powder room.
‘I do hope someone will come and ask you to dance,’ Mrs. Boyd said aside to Ann. ‘I shall be very angry with the young men if they don’t.’
So will I, thought Ann bleakly. Already she had worked it out that all the younger guests were paired off, except herself and Lang Franklin. Heather had her TV artist, and Claire had Rankin Bassett. Luie, of course, was engaged to Ross. Even Miss Devine had the departmental manager from Franklin’s.
‘He might feel he has to dance with me,’ Ann thought wretchedly. By ‘he’ she meant the only man in the room who mattered ‒ Lang Franklin. ‘After the first dance it will be all right. I’m sure Ross will ask me then. Luie will quite like dancing with Lang …’
Why, she thought rebelliously, was a girl always in this horrid position? She had to wait to be asked. To be a wallflower was to die a slow death when someone who mattered terribly was there to see.
The coffee was brought around and Aunt Cassie fell into a discussion about opening flower-shows with Mrs. Franklin and Mrs. Condon. Her manner said she had done this sort of thing before, but in truth no one in England had ever asked her. Now in this sunshine country she was delighted to do something she had always felt she could do much more competently than lots of other women she had seen perform in her home country.
In fact, Aunt Cassie thought, if flower-shows were plentiful in this country she might reasonably consider staying a little longer than was her first intention.
The coffee was finished and the cups and liqueur glasses were taken away. The miniature orchestra was playing quietly in nostalgic tones to beguile the dancers on to the floor.
Already Luie and Ross were up. Then a minute later Heather and her partner took the floor. Miss Devine and the departmental manager were dancing. Very nicely too!
It was quite a minute before Rankin Bassett crossed the floor, then shooting his cuffs in a most elegant manner as he bowed, asked Claire to dance with him.
Supposing Lang Franklin didn’t dance at all?
Ann tried hard to follow Aunt Cassie’s conversation. She could not watch the floor any longer. Even though she did not look she could see long black trouser-legs approaching.
He was so polite. He coul
d be coming to tell Aunt Cassie that he had enjoyed the evening. If she looked up he might think she was wanting him to dance with her. He might be coming to say he had to leave now. He had to go back to work. He was a very busy man.
The long legs had stopped in front of her. His shining shoes were of such beautiful soft leather it was almost a pity to have to look up from them.
He was looking down at her. Like Luie had said ‒ his mouth did not smile, but his eyes did. They also said something ‒ but only God in heaven, Ann thought, knew what it was. All the same she could have cried because of whatever it was that was in his eyes. Instead of crying she had to smile.
He held out one hand.
‘You won’t say no this time, Ann? Will you dance with me?’
She let him take her hand and draw her up in some magic way into his arms.
Ann never saw the signal Aunt Cassie had given the orchestra earlier. They were playing ‘Invitation to the Dance’ now. They had finished the opening bars where the partner crosses the floor to ask the girl of his choice to dance with him. They had swung into a graceful tender waltz air.
‘Such happy memories!’ Aunt Cassie said to her coterie of ladies and to the elderly gentlemen who now made a Court around her. ‘They played that at my own engagement party. My parents arranged it, of course, though I never let them know I knew. One does have to be tactful with parents, don’t you think, Mr. Condon? They are very thick-headed on occasions. They’re quite often as much a problem as are aunts. What do you think, Mrs. Franklin?’
Mrs. Franklin only laughed.
Mr. Condon was happily explaining to Mrs. Bassett that Weber borrowed the air for ‘Invitation to the Dance’ from an old German folk song.
‘About eighteen-nineteen,’ he said. He was unaware that there might have been a point to Aunt Cassie’s question directed to him.
