‘I knew this was going to be a great party,’ giggled Sally, clutching a glass of orange squash. ‘Have you seen how dishy those Cirencester boys are? Thighs on them like sycamores.’
‘I was rather distracted by the waiters.’
‘Judy says her mum hand-picked the most handsome boys from the village and paid them three shillings each to tend to us all night long.’
‘Go easy, Sal. It’s a marathon, not a sprint,’ said Georgia, watching her friend tip brandy from a hip flask into her glass.
‘Dutch courage,’ she grinned. ‘See the tall guy over there? Broad shoulders? He winked at me as soon as he got off the bus.’
‘It could have been a twitch rather than an invitation.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Sally, adjusting her cleavage.
Georgia watched her friend introduce herself to the strapping Cirencester student, remembering that her cousin Clarissa had warned her to avoid them. As Sally giggled and flirted, Georgia wanted to go over and tell her to stop. On the train she had confided that she had cut the neckline of her colbalt-blue couture gown into a daring scoop with a pair of scissors, and now her breasts were barely contained in her dress. There were several girls on the circuit who were getting a reputation for being a little ‘fast’, and Georgia did not want her friend to be one of them.
Before she could take action, she was shunted into the timber-framed barn, which smelt of hay and a lingering scent of horse manure, and introduced to Judy’s aunt Betty, who had come all the way from Cumberland for the party. For the next hour she was stuck with Aunt Betty, discussing the merits of John Donne over William Wordsworth until the finger buffet was served.
In London, the dances didn’t usually start until 8 p.m., but people here appeared to have been drinking punch or Pimm’s since late afternoon, and most of the guests seemed intoxicated. Judy’s parents and the more elderly guests had long since retired to the drawing room to drink gin, whilst several couples had left the barn, no doubt to go snogging in the bushes.
‘Fancy it?’ asked one of the heavy-thighed Cirencester students, sidling up to her with a canapé.
‘Fancy what?’ she replied, guessing that he was not referring to his cheese and pineapple nibble. Her best withering expression was enough to drive him away, and she decided that she definitely needed a cigarette.
She’d tried, she really had tried this evening. The problem was that other than Sally, she had no real friends at the party. Besides which, everyone had already paired off, and even if there were some single men still available, she knew she couldn’t flirt to save her life.
Feeling like a complete gooseberry, she went outside to have a smoke. In the bushes she saw a familiar flash of cobalt blue, and for a moment she wondered if she should go and fish out Sally from her al fresco assignation.
She looked up at the house, which was lit up and glowing in the dark. It seemed to be laughing at her.
Bugger this, she thought, stamping out her cigarette. She was so tired, even the thought of her attic camp bed had considerable appeal. She kicked off her shoes and ran across the lawn, enjoying the feel of the cool grass under her feet, then upstairs to the attic, slipping past a couple who were kissing on the staircase on the way. The door was closed. She pushed it open and saw a deb lying on one of the camp beds with her skirt hoicked up above her waist, her white panties on full show. A young man dressed in black tie turned round and growled that the room was taken.
‘But this is my bedroom,’ argued Georgia before being told to clear off.
She grabbed her suitcase, which she had thankfully not properly unpacked, and slammed the door behind her.
It was the same story in the room next door and the one next to that. She had no idea what the adults downstairs were doing, but they were clearly not paying any attention to the ‘socialising’ going on upstairs.
‘No wonder it’s called the Season,’ she muttered to herself as she found another bedroom occupied. ‘Everyone’s on bloody heat.’
She sat down on the threadbare carpet on the staircase until she was moved along by the housekeeper, who told her to hurry back outside. The sober realisation that she had no desire to go back into the barn and nowhere to go in the house made her feel excluded and miserable.
Then it struck her that she did not have to stay here.
She was invisible, but there was an upside to that.
If she was invisible, then no one would know she was gone. She glanced at her watch. It was only a few miles into Oxford, and it was just past nine o’clock. She could get the train back to London and be home before midnight. And even if the trains had finished for the night, she could check into a hotel. Certainly if her mother had moved to Provence at seventeen, then Georgia could find her way home from a miserable party in Oxfordshire.
Her mind was made up. At finishing school, good manners and etiquette had been drilled into them, but Georgia no longer cared what people like the Fortescues thought of her. And whilst she felt a pang of guilt for leaving Sally, her friend was otherwise occupied by Cirencester farmers and alcohol, and wouldn’t notice she was gone until breakfast.
She crept into Sally’s room, where there was a carafe of water and three sheets of crested writing paper and a pencil on the bedside table. She scribbled a few words of goodbye and apology, asking Sally to cover for her absence and suggesting that she have a banana and a glass of still ginger beer – Estella’s recommended hangover cure for the morning after. She left the note on Sally’s pillow and picked up her suitcase.
She heard footsteps in the distance – the quick, efficient steps of the housekeeper against the house’s stone floors – but they were going in the opposite direction, so she took her chance.
The front door was closed but unlocked and she slipped outside. As she ran down the gravel path, the sound of the jazz band playing ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ soared up into the evening air. She loved that song, but it was not enough to keep her there.
The journey from Oxford train station to the Fortescues’ house hadn’t seemed very long in the taxi – just a few minutes, although as she and Sally had been gossiping the whole way, it was hard to tell. It was certainly too far to walk, so when a bus came that apparently stopped in the city centre, she flagged it down. ‘Night’s drawing in, young lady,’ said the conductor with a note of disapproval.
‘Can you let me know when it’s the stop for Oxford stati