The Last Debutantes

by Georgie Blalock

  Chapter Four

  How is the new Mrs. Wheeler?” Aunt Anne asked from beside Valerie as they rode past St. James’s Park toward the Dorchester Hotel.

  Valerie caught Mr. May’s eyes in the rearview mirror before he focused on the road. Hers were still puffy from the last car ride that everyone in Downing Street must have heard about by now. No wonder Aunt Anne knew about her visit to Mavis. It was impossible to flee to a bedroom when one had to walk through the chaos downstairs simply to reach the staircase. Thankfully, Aunt Anne was straightforward about Valerie’s little escapade. She couldn’t bear more hysterics today. “Exactly as you’d expect.”

  “Well, tigers and stripes and all that.” Aunt Anne brushed the wrinkles out of her pleated, calf-length mauve skirt, her gold bracelet clinking against the buttons of her long sleeves. She wore a coat of fine wool trimmed with mink. Everything about her spoke of grace and social position, all the things Dorothy and Mavis had been kind enough to remind Valerie she didn’t possess. “You mustn’t think about her. She’s too common to merit your notice.”

  “It doesn’t mean she isn’t right.” The thought of walking into the luncheon to find a hundred Lady Ashcombes waiting to prove Mavis’s prediction true shook her resolve. She adjusted the bow on the hip of her forest-green tea dress, wondering how she’d get through this luncheon without hiding in the ladies’ room. She’d never imagined being that debutante.

  “What did Mavis say to you?”

  “Nothing that isn’t true.”

  “I very much doubt that. You must learn to ignore most of what others say. It’s usually nonsense.”

  “Is it? Lady Ashcombe reprimanded me for having the audacity to be Horace de Vere Cole’s daughter, as if I had a choice. Then there was Lady Fallington, who barely spared me the time of day, and Dorothy panicking into her coffee that I might pick my teeth in front of Their Majesties.” She didn’t mention Mavis’s remarks about her mother, unable to endure another dodged discussion or to discover that it was true.

  “You must especially learn to ignore Dorothy, she tends toward the prim and dogmatic like her grandmother. She certainly didn’t inherit that from me or Neville.” Aunt Anne adjusted her peaked hat, unruffled as always, even by Valerie’s outburst. “As for the rest, that’s to be expected from certain members of society who revel in looking down their noses at everyone. It’s as much a custom with some as afternoon tea, and eventually you’ll become accustomed to it. I promise, all the world isn’t Lady Ashcombes or Lady Fallingtons. Dinah, Christian, and Katherine were quite taken with you.”

  They were the brightest spot of the last two days, but they’d spent their whole lives in this world. They understood the rules and habits and probably how to ignore a jibe better than she did. They also recognized who did and didn’t belong and how to close ranks on undesirables. She didn’t want them to recoil from her when they realized she wasn’t the well-bred young lady she pretended to be or that her time in France had been more Charles Dickens suffering than grand Paris shopping tour.

  “Did you know, Lady Curzon once called me a powder puff, and that’s one of the nicest insults I’ve endured? I’ve developed the hide of a rhinoceros, thanks to Neville’s position. Eventually, you will too.”

  That she’d have to endure more days like today to develop a thick skin made her want to crawl back into bed and not come out until August. She’d been presented; that was all some girls aspired to before they slipped off to their country estates or wherever they’d come from. No one thought any worse of them because they weren’t feted at every dinner and ball. They simply vanished. Valerie could do the same. Returning to the Victorian rigidity of Great-Aunt Lillian wasn’t the glittering, life-changing Season she’d dreamed of but it would be a great deal less insulting. “Perhaps I should spend the summer at West Woodhay House instead of London.”

  “Nonsense. I have no intention of allowing you to give up the moment things turn thorny. Cowardice is an awful trait I refuse to encourage.”

  “I am hardly giving up.” Her being in London instead of rotting away in that horrid convent school was proof of that. If Valerie hadn’t stolen the stamps and written to Aunt Anne, she’d still be with the nuns or cast out on the streets once she turned eighteen. She might have been forced to marry some doddery old Englishman as Mavis had done to survive, or ventured irrevocably down the road that’d landed her in the convent to begin with. If Aunt Anne and Uncle Neville ever learned why Mr. Shoedelin had locked her away, their faith in her would vanish and she’d be as alone in England as she’d been in France.

  They’ll never know.

  Aunt Anne shifted to face her, the tenderness softening her cheeks and the lines at the corners of her eyes making it easy to see why Lady Curzon had called her a powder puff. She was greatly mistaken. That languid expression hid a strength few people outside the family ever saw, one Valerie wished she possessed. “The purpose of the Season isn’t to curtsey to the monarchs or wear fashionable clothes and impress everyone with witty conversation. It isn’t even to find a husband, although a number of girls will, but not you. Instead, you must learn the most important lesson—to handle difficult people and situations with grace and poise, to discover your strengths and weaknesses, and hone one and build up the other. When it’s all said and done and you’ve run the gauntlet of balls and sporting events, met people of all personalities, you’ll be well prepared for whatever life you choose to make for yourself.”

  “The life I choose? I’ve never had a choice in anything. It’s always been up to others, Mother, Father, Mavis.” Mr. Shoedelin, the bastard. “I’ve never had a say in anything, I’ve simply been left to lump it.”

  “Not anymore.” Aunt Anne grasped her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You’ve been forced to endure a great many difficulties in your short life but you’ve handled them with bravery and wisdom beyond your age. The Season will be no different. Once you find your footing, you’ll be a success. I’m certain of it. You have the spirit for it, more so than many others you’ll meet.”

  Valerie stared at her aunt’s hand in hers. She wasn’t sure she could stomach more insults, cuts, and snubs, but she must. She’d been at No. 10 for a month and this rare opportunity might disappear if the opposition ousted Uncle Neville. She couldn’t throw it away by fleeing and proving to Mavis and everyone that their poor opinion of her was correct. Father had been a coward, running from debts, heartbreak, and anything that’d ever demanded more of him. She refused to be like him and watch the pride in her aunt’s eyes fade to disappointment. She must face the next four months and whatever they threw at her. “I promise to make the best of the Season.”

  “Good, because we’re nearly there.” Aunt Anne patted her hand, then slid her Yardley compact out of her purse and handed it to Valerie. “Freshen up. One must look one’s best when entering the arena to face tigresses.”

  While Valerie powdered away the redness in her cheeks, the car glided past the Wellington Arch and the brown sandstone and columned front of Apsley House at the corner of Piccadilly and Park Lane. The Dorchester Hotel with its stone walls, iron balconies, and three Union Jacks flying from the rooftop masts came into view. The white spires of the hotel stood out from the mass of green trees surrounding it, their lushness echoed in the plantings in the circle outside the main door. Mr. May didn’t stop there, but continued around to the hotel’s ballroom entrance. When the car came to a halt, the doorman in the Dorchester’s green tailcoat and black and gold top hat stepped forward to hand them out. Valerie followed Aunt Anne in through the revolving door and with the turn of it the noise of London settled to the quiet tinkling of a piano and the high buzz of feminine voices.

  The debutantes gathered in small groups around the brass-embellished entrance hall, many faces familiar from the morning papers and last night’s presentation. Dinah, Katherine, and Christian weren’t among them, but Rosalind Cubitt stood chatting with Priscilla Brett on the stairs leading to the gilded Crush Room. Vale
rie smiled at her, hoping for at least a tepid greeting after their introduction, but Rosalind’s gaze merely floated over her before settling back on her friend.

  All the world isn’t Rosalind Cubitts, she reminded herself as she followed Aunt Anne past them to the seating chart outside the main ballroom.

  “Anne, at last. We’re near the patronesses’ table,” Caroline, Lady Bridgeman, Aunt Anne’s dearest friend, greeted with a continental kiss. She was thicker in the middle than Aunt Anne and taller, with graying dark hair drawn back into a low chignon. “You look lovely today, Valerie. You’re at table twenty-two with Miss Betty Dunn and Lady Margaret Boyle.”

  Valerie peered through the open ballroom doors. Those girls not standing with friends sat by themselves at the large round tables covered in pale blue linens and flowered centerpieces. They either pretended not to notice that they were alone or silently willed anyone passing by to stop and sit with them the same way Valerie used to do during the sparse meals at the convent. She didn’t relish joining their ranks if Dinah and the others had changed their minds about her.

  “Talk to the girls at your table about volunteering for the Personal Service League,” Lady Bridgeman pressed. “Since we’ve shifted our focus from collecting clothes for the unemployed to gathering supplies for hospitals, we need more volunteers than ever. As the vice chairman, I’m tasked with bringing some young blood into the organization.”

  Valerie doubted a tableful of ladies and honorables would be of much use to Lady Bridgeman but she’d find a way to broach the socially acceptable subject. It would at least give her something besides the weather to discuss. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Think about it for yourself too. You could set the trend for joining. Shall we go in?”

  It wasn’t a question so much as an invitation Valerie wasn’t quick to accept.

  “Steady on.” Aunt Anne patted her encouragingly on the arm. “Remember, many of these girls haven’t had the advantages of school like their brothers. They’re fresh from the country or the schoolroom and as nervous as you. Be kind and friendly and you’ll do well.”

  Aunt Anne followed Lady Bridgeman to the patroness table at the front of the room, welcoming and receiving greetings from the regal matrons in their inherited jewels and custom Schiaparelli dresses.

  Valerie wasn’t likely to get that effusive a welcome from anyone seated with her, but she refused to stand there like some ignored Lady Clancarty protégée either. She followed the table numbers deeper into the room, passing under the intricately carved ceiling with its curving chandelier. Pale pink drapes hung from every wall, the line of them broken by pier glasses set with large crystal sconces. She passed many girls as she wove through the well-laid tables. Some smiled at her, while others paused in their conversations to eye her the way they had last night. She ignored them and committed the friendly faces to mind, determined to strike up a conversation with them when she had the chance. She reached table twenty-two and was about to set her purse at one of the last open places when a dark-haired girl approached her.

  “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.” Her smile was more stalking cat than innocent beguiling.

  “Valerie de Vere—”

  “I know who you are. You’re the debutante in Downing Street, fresh from finishing school in France.”

  Valerie didn’t correct her about where she’d come from or ask what newspaper had given her that ridiculous sobriquet. “And you are?”

  “The Honorable Vivien Mosley.” She clasped her hands in front of her, eyeing Valerie with the same superior smirk that Antoinette and her beastly friends used to sport at the convent whenever they’d decided to pester une jeune Anglaise. “Rosalind, have you had the pleasure of meeting Miss de Vere Cole?”

  “I have.” Rosalind stepped up beside her friend, giving Valerie more consideration than in the entrance hall. “Allow me to introduce Priscilla Brett.”

  She motioned to the petite, brown-haired girl in the blue-flowered dress with a Peter Pan collar. “A pleasure, I’m sure,” Priscilla greeted with more graciousness than her friends. “I like your frock.”

  There was a genuine and surprising compliment. “Thank you.”

  “I simply adore following politics, and there you are, right in the heart of things,” Vivien said, stepping in before they became too chummy. She wore her black hair parted to one side with large, draping curls that brushed the shoulder of her pale pink cotton dress. “I bet you know ever so much, such as what your uncle has in store. To read the papers one would think he was trying to work out how much more of Europe to give to the Germans.”

  Rosalind and Priscilla giggled behind her like the French schoolgirls used to do during Antoinette’s daily torments. The sinking sense that Mavis might be right about ancestry covering coarseness made her stomach drop, but heaven help her if she was going to allow Vivien Mosley to be the one to try to sniff her out. There were black sheep all over her family’s fields.

  “You shouldn’t disrespect the Prime Minister. He kept Britain out of another awful war and saved a good many Englishmen’s lives,” Valerie reminded the chit.

  “He humiliated us in front of the entire world. My friend in America sent me this.” Vivien tapped the white enamel umbrella pin on her chest. Valerie recognized the pin. It stood for Uncle Neville’s umbrella and the cowardice many thought he’d shown by giving part of Czechoslovakia to Germany in exchange for Herr Hitler’s guarantee of peace. “They’re all the rage there. The Yanks think less of your uncle than we do.”

  “What do the Yanks think of your father cozying up to Herr Hitler?”

  “My father is no admirer of his.”

  “No admirer,” Valerie snorted as Dinah and Katherine joined the growing group of girls surrounding them to witness what was fast becoming Valerie’s second spat of the day. She had to stand up to Vivien or the girl would bully her for the rest of the Season. It was a hard lesson she’d learned from Antoinette. “Herr Hitler was the witness at your father’s marriage. I’m surprised your father finally married Diana Guinness after all those years she spent as his mistress.”

  A sharp intake of breath from everyone around them nearly sucked the air out of the ballroom.

  Vivien’s face went pale beneath her dark hair. “How dare you?”

  “Why? I haven’t said anything that isn’t true,” Valerie mocked. “I think you and your father are still bitter because he lost a Parliament seat to Uncle Neville all those years ago. What a grudge.”

  “My father is more of a politician than your uncle could ever hope to be. If the government had listened to him, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

  “We’d be in a bigger one with more Englishmen beaten senseless by your father’s awful Blackshirt thugs.”

  “Stop it, you two,” Betty Dunn scolded from across the table. “No one wants to hear about all that.”

  “Yes, give it a rest,” Lady Margaret Boyle insisted from where she sat beside Betty. “Don’t spoil our lunch with politics.”

  Valerie almost said she hadn’t started it, but they didn’t care. She doubted the patronesses would care either once news of this unladylike tiff reached them. It was sure to, with this many people watching and having heard what she’d said about Lady Mosley. As ignorant as she could be of how things were done in society, even she knew it wasn’t polite to air other families’ dirty secrets in public. They were supposed to be whispered around private tea tables, not bandied about like the morning headlines, especially not by a properly bred debutante who shouldn’t even know about mistresses.

  Vivien marched off with Rosalind and Priscilla in tow. The girls still crowded around Valerie cast sideways looks at the uncouth deb in their midst. She wanted to kick herself for not having been more dignified. She could’ve shown everyone that she was too refined to be drawn into a petty squabble. Instead, she’d sunk to Vivien’s level, outdoing the chit in an effort to best her. It was a hollow victory and was likely to hurt more
than help her. There were thousands of debs this Season and only three hundred had been invited to participate in the Queen Charlotte’s Birthday Ball. She imagined it wouldn’t be long before a cadre of patronesses marched over to order her out of the room. Vivien would gloat then and there’d be another hand-wringing lecture from Dorothy and a one-way train ticket to West Woodhay House. Mavis would cackle into her coffee when she read between the lines about this in the Tatler. She should’ve walked away from Vivien and kept her mouth shut.

  She was about to visit the ladies’ loo and become better acquainted with the attendant when Dinah grasped her arm. “Is it true what you said about Lady Mosley?”

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

  “Of course you should’ve. The nerve of Vivien, attacking you for no reason, but don’t let her ruin the day. Let’s find our seats.”

  “Mine’s here.” She glanced across the table at the girls shooting daggers at her. She supposed this wasn’t the best time to mention joining the Personal Service League. The number of people she was disappointing today was quickly racking up.

  “Not anymore. You’ll sit with us.”

  “We want to hear everything,” Katherine said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m sure to get in trouble for this. I don’t want either of you to suffer too.” The story was probably flying around the room.

  Dinah batted her hand at Valerie. “If I had a shilling for every time someone did that to me because of my aunt, I’d be richer than Uncle John Jacob. Come on.” She tugged Valerie off, Katherine hanging on to her other arm as they shifted to a table closer to the front of the room.