The Proposal

‘He’s a nice boy, a good family.’

‘I’m not going,’ said Georgia, trying to twist away from her.

‘You are,’ instructed Estella, shutting the front door behind them and herding Georgia down the steps and out on to the street.

He had already got out of the taxi and was holding the door open for her. He was a couple of inches shorter than she was, with sandy blond hair and a pinkie ring on his little finger.

‘Frederick McDonald. How do you do,’ he said with an obviously anxious smile. ‘It’s wonderful to finally meet. I’ve been hearing all about you.’

Georgia couldn’t bring herself to lie that the feeling was mutual.

Queen Charlotte’s Ball, one of the highlights of the entire Season, was being held in the Great Room of the Grosvenor House hotel. Cocktails were to precede dinner, which was to be served at 8.30. It was supposed to be a magnificent night and tickets for the event cost four pounds and four shillings each, not that Georgia’s family had had to pay for them – Donald Daly, Sally’s father, had announced that he had bought an entire table of ten and insisted that the Hamiltons should join them.

‘George, here you are,’ squealed Sally as soon as she had deposited her wrap in the cloakroom.

Georgia was glad to see her best friend in London. The two girls had become close ever since they had met at Emily Nightingale’s cocktail party. Although they hadn’t traded contact details then, they had started to see one another everywhere and soon had made plans to meet up away from the Season events. Although Sally was taking the Season very seriously indeed, she was an easy-going girl with a sense of fun and generosity of spirit that Georgia had warmed to immediately.

Georgia was still in a bad mood from her confrontation with her mother but gasped in delight when she saw her friend’s gown – a floor-length confection in the palest vanilla made of duchess silk and tulle.

‘So, what’s your date like?’ asked Sally, hooking her arm through her friend’s conspiratorially.

‘Even you know I had Frederick McDonald lined up for me this evening?’

‘Well, my mother was doing a table plan and needed to call Sybil, so we got all the gossip.’

‘Thanks again for the tickets. It was so kind of you.’

‘I could lie and tell you that Dad’s splashed the cash because you’re the nicest, most fun deb on the circuit,’ Sally whispered dramatically. ‘But it was when I told Mum that your aunt was an aristocrat’s daughter that my parents insisted we should share a table tonight. Such are their frightening levels of social climbing, they’ve even brought my brother Keith along, and I think Mum has seated him next to Clarissa. I hope she’s not frightfully cross. Look, there they are being introduced now.’

Georgia glanced across the room and saw her cousin chatting to a rotund young gentlemen with a ruddy complexion and an ill-fitting dinner suit. Sally had taken after her attractive mother in the looks department; Keith was a dead ringer for their more aesthetically challenged father. Clarissa wasn’t going to be cross. She was going to be furious.

‘Frederick’s cute,’ observed Sally as they weaved through the tables, stopping every few feet to say hello to a fellow deb. Georgia surprised herself with how many people she knew here, having served lots of them in the Swiss Chalet coffee shop, which had proved to be quite a popular place for debutantes to meet their latest paramours. Fledgling romances developed over apple strudel and hot chocolate before her very eyes, and she had even heard whispers that a couple of her acquaintances hoped to be engaged before the end of the summer. Others she knew from her own cocktail party a couple of weeks earlier, an event that had gone surprisingly well. Uncle Peter had secured a room at the Chelsea Arts Club, which they had decorated with fairy lights. It had been a meagre finger buffet – Estella’s attempts at aspic had been disastrous, her hoped-for gelatinous centrepiece little more than a bowlful of cold meats floating in a pond of thin pale pink fluid after the thing had failed to set. However, their provision of cocktails had been excellent. Georgia had been in sporadic communication with Edward Carlyle – a handful of letters had bounced between them following that night in Putney, after which she had sent him an invitation to her party. He hadn’t been able to attend – apparently revision for Finals was getting a little bit hairy – but instead had sent a recipe book of cocktails, which she had plundered for ideas.

She glanced around the room to see if Edward was here tonight. He hadn’t mentioned in their last correspondence that he was coming, but she was hoping to see a friendly face in this sea of stiff, white-gloved formality.

They took their seats at the round table. Georgia had been placed between Frederick and Keith – clearly Mrs Daly was hedging her bets, a thought Georgia didn’t like to dwell on too long.

‘Save me,’ whispered Clarissa into her ear, before taking her place on Keith’s other side. Georgia grinned back at her supportively.

The menus were written in French, but her command of the language was good enough to translate it. Soup. Fillet of sole. Chicken and potatoes. All of which she felt sounded much more exotic and delicious left in the original French.

‘I love your crown. Where did you buy it?’ asked Sally’s mother Shirley, eyeing Sybil’s tiara with desire.

‘I was given it by my uncle when I married Peter,’ replied Sybil politely.

‘Don, maybe we can get one next time we go to Bond Street.’

Georgia hoped her aunt wouldn’t point out that it had been in the family for generations, but Sybil maintained a discreet silence.

‘So tell me about business, Mr Daly,’ she asked instead.

‘Doing well,’ he smiled, tucking his napkin into the front of his shirt and summoning the wine waiter to bring over three bottles of champagne. ‘It’s going through the roof, in fact. Not bad considering I started off with a couple of old bicycles on the back of a horse and cart.’

‘You were a rag-and-bone man?’ said Clarissa, her eyes wide.

‘Not too far off, love,’ grinned Don Daly. ‘But there’s a big future in metal recycling. You seen those aluminium cans for soda pop? The lot will be recyclable.’

‘Money for old rubbish.’ Sybil laughed at her own joke.