The Proposal

by Tasmina Perry

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Georgia as the customer moved to the cash desk. ‘It’s easy to look that elegant when you have an unlimited budget. Well, here’s a secret. Stylish women don’t have to spend a fortune. They just have to take the time to find their own style.’

  Amy was only half listening. She couldn’t believe how great her whole leg looked in the plain black shoe, a shoe that on any other occasion she would have overlooked, even if it was half the price.

  ‘I thought they would suit you,’ said Georgia firmly, motioning to the assistant to put them in the box.

  Amy resisted smiling. She couldn’t believe she was getting fashion advice from a seventy-something.

  ‘Now back upstairs.’

  Amy did as she was told and followed Georgia into a room where there were mannequins adorned in sumptuous gowns. She walked around, trailing her fingers across the fabric, imagining herself dressed for a ball. She was beginning to relax and enjoy herself.

  ‘Oh wow, look at the feathers sewn into the skirt! It’s like Tallulah Bankhead meets Swan Lake.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that young people were aware of Tallulah Bankhead,’ smiled Georgia.

  ‘My nona – my grandma – was a big fan, had all her videos. She always told a story about how she had met her once, uptown in some speakeasy in Harlem, but I’m not sure Nona was really old enough. It was a nice story, though.’

  Georgia sat down on a long sofa and Amy joined her.

  ‘I think I could set up home in this place,’ said Amy.

  Georgia smiled.

  ‘It’s not a shop. It’s a house full of clothes. It doesn’t get more perfect than that.’

  Amy looked at the older woman with interest.

  ‘You’re a dark horse,’ she said. ‘You, fashion . . .’

  ‘I can’t like clothes because I’m old? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Amy quickly, still finding it difficult to picture Georgia leafing through Vogue. ‘You’ve got great style.’

  ‘There are some women who can just throw together a little something and make it look fabulous. I’m not one of those women. But one can look and learn from the women who do dress well. When I was at finishing school in Paris, I had a French friend who worked in a café across the road from where we lived. She was as poor as a church mouse, but she was still as stylish as a Dior house model. She had such style, but I soon noticed that she didn’t have very many clothes. It was like a uniform: black cigarette pants, white shirts, those little stripy tops that everyone seems to wear these days, everything in the most flattering cut for her shape. Of course, true style is knowing who you are and not giving a damn. My old friend Gore Vidal said that, and it’s as true now as the day he said it.’

  ‘Nice clothes help, though, you gotta agree.’

  ‘Clothes can give you power, I’ll admit that,’ said Georgia. ‘Choosing the right outfit, a flattering outfit that makes you feel good, can change your whole personality.’ She smiled and patted Amy’s hand. ‘Next time you go to the Tower of London, you’ll need your armour.’

  She gestured for Amy to stand.

  ‘You have excellent deportment,’ she said with a pleased nod. ‘A dancer’s posture, I noticed that immediately. You have a wonderful figure, of course, but your stance is much more important. An erect head will make any woman look taller, more elegant and more confident.’

  She stepped over to a rack of dresses and began flicking through. ‘Hmm . . . possible . . . no, no, too short . . .’ she mused as she went. ‘None of these are right.’

  ‘I wonder if you could help?’ she said, turning to a sales assistant. ‘My friend would like a little black dress. Simple, classic, not too revealing.’

  ‘Size four?’ said the assistant, looking Amy up and down, then nodded and disappeared, emerging with three black dresses draped over her arm. Georgia held them up one by one, squinting at Amy like an artist regarding a life model.

  ‘This one, I think,’ she said, handing it to her.

  ‘Georgia . . .’ said Amy, widening her eyes meaningfully, but the other woman simply gave a quick shake of the head. ‘Try it on, come on, chop chop.’

  Amy could tell the moment she stepped into the dress that it was going to look fabulous. Georgia had been modest; she clearly had a very good eye for clothes. It clung to her curves in all the right places, but without being in any way revealing. It was sophisticated; it made her poor sequin-shedding dress look like something from a little girl’s dressing-up box. She turned and stepped out of the changing room.

  ‘Ah,’ sighed Georgia when she saw her. ‘I believe it was Wallis Simpson who said that when a little black dress is right, there is nothing else to wear in its place.’

  She stood up and pinched the back of the dress.

  ‘This is almost perfect,’ she mused. ‘I can recommend a tailor in London to take it in slightly. All the smartest women have even the finest clothes altered to exactly fit their shape. Couture clothes for off-the-peg prices.’

  ‘It is lovely,’ smiled Amy shyly. ‘It makes me want to go and hang outside Tiffany’s with a doughnut. Shame I can’t afford it.’

  ‘Did you look at the price tag?’

  ‘No, but . . .’

  ‘Then don’t. We’ll take this,’ said Georgia quickly to the sales assistant.

  ‘Georgia, I’m serious. I don’t have any money,’ hissed Amy urgently.

  ‘But I’m paying for it,’ said Georgia matter-of-factly. ‘And the shoes.’

  Amy looked at her wide-eyed.

  ‘I can’t accept that.’

  Georgia tilted her head.

  ‘Whether it is a gift or a compliment, a lady should accept it graciously.’

  Amy looked at Georgia, then back down at the dress.

  ‘This isn’t a joke?’

  ‘It’s no joke,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Now come along, we have to be somewhere else by six. And a lady – or at least these two ladies – is never late.’

  It was dark outside, and New York looked even more magical. Alfonse collected them, and as they drove down Fifth Avenue, skirting Central Park, Amy drank it all in. The streets were crammed with New Yorkers wrapped up warm and doing last-minute Christmas shopping, laden down with bags – the distinctive brown and white stripes belonging to Henri Bendel, the crisp black and white of Saks. Best of all, she loved looking in the shop windows. New York stores always did wonderful holiday windows, she thought, catching sight of the art-deco-inspired displays in Bergdorf Goodman.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Georgia gleefully, pointing at the mannequins. ‘They look like beauties on their way to one of Gatsby’s Great Egg parties.’

  The car continued downtown all the way to 24th Street and back on to the lower reaches of Madison Avenue.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Georgia briskly, getting out of the car.

  ‘Eleven Madison Park. I don’t know this place. What is it? A hotel?’

  ‘Further education,’ smiled Georgia.

  They went inside, off the cold street, where Georgia asked to speak to Clive.

  Amy’s eyes were fixed on the glamorous and powerful clientele. Growing up in New York, she had often walked past these fancy places – restaurants with French names, or names carved in tiny letters, as if you were simply expected to know what they were; famous restaurants, bistros that you read about in Page Six, restaurants that appeared on magazine hot lists and Michelin lists – but she had never been inside one. She wished she was wearing the Ralph Lauren little black dress that was in the stiff cardboard bag in her hand, but she realised that she had an even better accessory by her side – Georgia, whose presence gave her a quiet reassurance that she had never felt when she went to these sort of places in London with Daniel.

  ‘Who’s Clive?’ she whispered.

  ‘An old friend who worked in Claridge’s for many years. Ah – here he is now.’

  A fifty-something gentleman in a beautifully cut su
it extended his hand towards Georgia, who seemed to soften in his presence.

  ‘It’s so good to see you again,’ she said warmly as they shook hands.

  ‘It has been far too long, Miss Hamilton.’

  ‘Well, I finally made it. I suppose asking you to call me Georgia after so long would be futile?’

  They all laughed, and Georgia introduced Clive to Amy before they were led upstairs away from the main dining area.

  Amy had assumed they were here to eat, but perhaps not.

  ‘Here we go. The South Room,’ said Clive, ushering them into a small, elegant dining space on a mezzanine floor over the restaurant.

  ‘Look at this place,’ said Amy, gazing out through the long windows on to Madison Square Park. ‘Are we the only people here?’

  ‘This is one of our private dining rooms,’ explained Clive, handing her a menu.

  ‘I thought we could kill two birds with one stone. We get to sample some exceptional cuisine, and I can help you with this.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘This,’ said Georgia, gesturing towards the table, formally set as if for a banquet for two.

  Amy’s eyes opened wide. ‘Now? We’re going to talk about bread rolls and stuff now?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that I’m not sure I’ll be able to remember it all. I haven’t got a notebook or anything. I mean, I’d write it all on the back of a napkin if they weren’t made out of linen.’

  Georgia patted her hand.

  ‘Relax, my dear. The point of this exercise is not to make you an expert, rather to make you comfortable being in this environment. And to learn that not everything is important.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll try.’

  ‘So, food is served from the left,’ said Clive, bending to place a small plate in front of her. He stepped around her and picked it up from the other side. ‘And cleared from the right.’

  ‘The idea was to prevent the servants crashing into each other,’ said Georgia. ‘And that’s why drinks are always served from the right.’

  ‘I’ll remember that for the pub,’ grinned Amy, but Georgia gave her a stern look.

  ‘Do you want to take this seriously?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, holding up a hand. ‘I’m just a bit nervous. And confused. I mean, I’ve been a waitress for a while now, and no one at the Forge ever told me there was a right way to serve.’

  ‘What do you know about wine glasses?’ asked Georgia, already moving on.

  ‘Without them, we’d be swigging out of the bottle like a hobo?’

  Another stern look.

  ‘Okay, okay, I know the answer to this one,’ said Amy quickly, not wanting another reprimand. ‘Red wine goes in the big one. White wine in the smaller one, although if it was down to me, I’d take the big one every time and fill it up all the way.’

  ‘And don’t forget the biggest glass is for your water,’ said Georgia, pointing to the herd of glasses that Clive had arranged on the table.

  ‘You’re our advanced glassware class, Clive. What can you tell us?’ said Georgia with the hint of a smile.

  Clive placed two glasses of champagne in front of Georgia and Amy, each receptacle a different shape. He explained that one was a flute, the other a saucer – the shape of the latter apparently modelled on Marie Antoinette’s right breast.

  ‘But which one is better for champagne?’ asked Amy,

  ‘Well, the saucer looks prettier,’ smiled Georgia. ‘But the flute has less surface area, so the champagne retains the bubbles longer. Personally I never like to leave it in the glass that long.’

  Next she was introduced to a magnum glass, apparently reserved for particularly aromatic Burgundy and usually only filled halfway to allow the bouquet to collect inside the glass.

  ‘So how is a Burgundy different from other sorts of wine?’ she asked. It was the sort of question she’d never have asked Daniel even in the privacy of her own home, let alone at one of the smart dinner parties he occasionally took her to. But even after this short time she felt comfortable asking Georgia and Clive anything; the fact that she barely knew the pair of them somehow made it easier.

  ‘Burgundy is simply the region of France the wine comes from,’ explained Clive. ‘It’s a highly respected wine-growing area – you’ve probably heard of Chablis – and produces many of the top wines in the world. But it’s most famous for its reds – like this one. Full-bodied, smooth, aromatic . . .’ He poured a little of the wine and asked her what she could smell.

  Tentatively Amy picked up the big glass and pushed her nose inside, inhaling. It was wonderful: sweet, fruity and rich, like a basket of freshly picked berries. She looked up at Clive, wondering what she should say.

  ‘Cherries,’ she said hesitantly, unsure whether this was the right answer.

  ‘Very good,’ he said, his eyes twinkling. ‘I can smell cherries, and chocolate too.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ grinned Amy, taking a long, delicious sip.

  Clive walked away to get their starters, their little wine appreciation session over.

  ‘Wow – my folks at home aren’t going to recognise me when they bring out the cheap stuff and I stick my nose in it.’

  ‘Price isn’t always an indicator of quality. I’ve taken a great ten-pound bottle of wine to many dinner parties. Because it’s good and I like it and I want to share it with my friends. Have faith in what you like. Have courage in who you are and your opinions. It doesn’t matter if you can smell cherries or chocolate or chalk dust so long as you believe what you say and you are respectful of what other people believe.’

  ‘Even if it’s wrong?’

  ‘And how do you define wrong? Why should your opinion be any less valid than the next person just because they have more money in the bank or have studied at all the right places?’

  Clive brought over three successively delicious courses, during which Georgia explained the intricacies of modern table manners. Apparently bread rolls were always broken, never cut with a knife; soup bowls were gently tipped away from you. Napkins were placed on laps, salt and pepper added after food had been tasted. Plates were never pushed to one side, elbows were kept off the table no matter how strange this might at first feel, although a light lean was allowed if there was no food present. Fidgeting was not elegant. Smiling apparently was.

  ‘Will you come?’ said Amy quietly.

  ‘Come where?’

  She looked into Georgia’s tired grey eyes and thought of her ordering room service and a bottle of good Burgundy at the hotel the following evening. No one deserved to be alone at Christmas, even if they believed that was what they wanted.

  ‘To my house. In Queens.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s your family time.’

  ‘I want you to come and I think you’d enjoy it. No one there knows a Beaujolais from a Budweiser, but my mom does these great butterscotch carrots that have just got your name on them.’

  ‘In which case, we had better brief Alfonse.’ And Amy swore she could see Georgia’s eyes sparkle.

  May 1958

  ‘I’m so glad you agreed to come,’ grinned Sally Daly as they passed through the gates of Giles House on the outskirts of a picturesque village near Wytham Woods in Oxfordshire.

  The debutante parties and dances had moved into the countryside, and Georgia clutched the little cream suitcase on her lap tightly as the two girls arrived at their destination.

  ‘We’ll have a great time,’ she said, smiling as brightly as possible, though her heart was sinking at the thought of spending the next twelve hours in the house ahead of her. But she had made a promise to herself and to her mother that she would throw herself wholeheartedly into the Season. After all, what was it someone had said to her recently? That if she resisted life less, she might enjoy it more.

  So she’d had a makeover at the cosmetics counter at Debenham & Freebody and had her hair trimmed into a neat and stylish crop, which somehow made it look more blond.
She had been to the polo at Cowdray Park, the horse trials at Badminton, throwing herself into the Season with such aplomb that she even had Sybil smiling.

  Tonight’s festivities were being hosted by one Mr and Mrs Charles Fortescue for their daughter Judy, a tall, red-haired debutante who was part of a rather cliquey and competitive set who loved horses. According to Sally, who seemed to know every deb on the circuit and was plugged into all the gossip, tonight was not a dance, but a house party, with almost sixty guests staying at the property overnight. Deb’s delights were apparently being shipped in from the university, and from the agricultural college at Cirencester, and hopes were high for meaningful encounters, even though the men would apparently all be leaving at midnight.

  Georgia had painted her toenails, waxed her legs, and cleared up a blemish with a face mask. Perhaps if she found her husband-to-be sooner rather than later, she would save herself from having to go to more parties like this one.

  As the taxi made its way up the long drive, she took a moment to observe the Fortescue property, which was large if a little faded around the edges. The past few weeks had been quite wet ones, but tonight was a clear and warm evening, and as the sun dipped behind the line of trees, it sent streamers of golden light across the grounds.

  At the front door, the girls were met by a stern-looking housekeeper dressed in black.

  ‘You’re late,’ she said, not even bothering to look at them directly.

  ‘We caught a different train from the one we were supposed to.’

  ‘They are all outside playing croquet. Drinks are being served any minute on the terrace. You should go to your rooms and unpack, but you had better be quick.’

  Outside, Georgia glimpsed at least seventy people in the garden. Tables groaned under the weight of jugs of Pimm’s and silver bowls of strawberries.

  ‘I assume you are Georgia Hamilton and Sally Daly,’ said the housekeeper, running her finger down a clipboard. ‘You’re the only ones not accounted for.’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Follow me. I’ll show you to your rooms.’

  The girls trailed behind her through the house, past a boot room where two enormous elephant’s feet now stored umbrellas, and up a flight of stairs.