by Page, Sophie
‘Only in outline. They won’t actually have bought any fabric or made anything.’
‘You’re clearly not creative,’ said Bella. ‘They will have worked on it, eaten, slept and dreamed of it. Raising their hopes like this is callous. It’s not right.’
Lady Pansy stiffened. ‘It’s the way we always do things.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Bella wearily. ‘Tradition.’
But it was even worse when she looked at the drawings. They were all, every single one, huge-skirted, frilled and furbelowed, with swags of pearls or bows of lace in every conceivable crevice.
‘I’ll look like a duvet cover while it’s being changed,’ she told Lottie gloomily. ‘Some right-thinking person will jump out of the crowd and try to beat the lumps out of me.’
‘It can’t be that bad. You’re being paranoid again.’
But after she’d looked through the portfolio that Bella had brought home, Lottie had to admit that it was not paranoia. They truly were …
‘Frightful,’ said Bella.
‘Not your style,’ amended Lottie. She peered at the signature on a crinoline so huge that it could probably double as an air balloom. ‘Lawson? What on earth? He’s the guy who usually sends brides down the aisle with the back of the wedding dress cut down to the bum. Known for it. It’s his signature quirk. This thing has got a liberty bodice sewn in! He must have gone mad.’
Bella clutched her hair. ‘It’s almost certainly Lady Pansy. She briefed them all. It has to be traditional, it has to please Middle England, and it has to make me look like the biggest laundry bag in the world.’
Lottie looked at the drawings again and made sympathetic noises.
‘She’s the Queen’s best friend. She’s known Richard since he was in the cradle. They all love her and they’re certain she knows best. And I can’t prove she doesn’t, because I’m letting it all get on top of me. Oh, God, Lotts. What am I going to do?’
20
‘Bridesmaids and Vikings’ – Morning Times
Oddly enough, it was Janet who came up with the solution to the problem. She had come up to Town for lunch with Bella since it was, she said, the only way she got to see her daughter. Conscience-stricken, Bella booked a table at a small wine bar round the corner from the charity’s offices. But, though her mother was in a determined mood, there were none of the reproaches that Bella was braced for.
‘Look, Bella,’ she said, ‘Kevin and I have been talking. I know that your father has washed his hands of the wedding. Has he even spoken to you?’
Bella had to admit he hadn’t. ‘But that’s happened before, Ma. You know what he’s like. And I was pretty rude to him.’
‘Good for you,’ said Janet, surprisingly. ‘It’s your life. But anyway, Kevin wanted me to say, he would be delighted to help out in any way. For instance, neither of us feels quite comfortable with the way the Palace seems to have taken you over.’
Bella was startled. ‘Doesn’t sound like you, Ma.’
Janet pressed her lips together. ‘I admire the Royal Family. But it does seem that they are riding roughshod over you sometimes. Whenever I speak to you, you have to break off to take a call from Lady Pansy in the middle of it. And it seems to me you’re rushing from pillar to post, trying to keep up with it all. So Kevin says what you need is a proper, trained Personal Assistant. He says that would take some of the strain off you. And he would like to pay for it.’
Bella was so touched that for a moment she could not speak.
Janet began to look nervous. ‘Is that all right? We don’t want to interfere. I just hate to see you looking so frantic.’
‘Ma, you’re wondrous. And Kevin is undoubtedly the best stepfather in the world. They did say they were going to employ me a PA. But in the end Lady Pansy just hired a couple of girls without consulting me, and they work for her in the office in the Palace. Lottie helps me think and keeps me sane, mostly. And there’s Carlos and everyone at the hair salon. But …’
‘I know,’ said Janet. ‘Everyone’s busy. So is that all right then?’
Bella nodded. ‘I’d be so grateful. I can’t tell you.’
Janet looked delighted. ‘I’ll tell Kevin. He will be so pleased. Um – any chance of you coming to stay at all?’
Bella consulted her schedule. These days she downloaded Richard’s week first and then fitted her own activities around his.
‘Well, Richard’s away on some Schools Sports thing this weekend. I could come though, if you don’t mind just me?’
Janet brightened. ‘That would be lovely. It’s beautiful at the moment. The daffodils are all out and there are primroses along the river.’
For a moment Bella had such a pang of longing it was almost physical. She loved London but she was a nature girl at heart and it was a long time since she had smelled the damp of impacted leaves and the sharp clean scent of things pushing up through the warming earth. Spring was always beautiful in the New Forest.
‘Oh, yes, Ma. I’d love that,’ she said from the heart.
‘Good. I’ll ask Neill and Val, if they’re free.’
‘You won’t get Neill. He’s got his Viking thing on Easter Monday. He’s training every moment he gets.’
‘Well, Val then. She seems much happier these days. And Georgia perhaps. Oh, it will be just like old times.’
Bella put it into her schedule and copied it to Richard and his office.
He texted back at once: Good idea. Wish I could make it. Give Janet my love.
She passed it on, they finished lunch and her mother went back to Hampshire.
Kevin was on the phone within half an hour of Janet’s departure. ‘Don’t know if you have anyone in mind as a PA,’ he said gruffly. ‘But the Head of HR here says they could probably help. Young woman with small children, delighted to work from home, that sort of thing. If you would like, I’ll send you her email. Don’t want to interfere, though.’
Don’t want to interfere. That’s what her mother had said too. How different Kevin and Janet were from Richard’s family, thought Bella. And then thought, no, it’s not his family. Apart from Queen Jane’s outburst in Andorra, none of them had even tried to interfere, and that had been much more about the Queen’s own life than Bella’s and Richard’s.
No, the interference, the plethora of petty details, the comments, the criticisms of anything she wanted to do, that all came from the blasted Private Offices via Lady Pansy, with Lady P herself putting her oar in at every opportunity. Were they making work to keep themselves important?
Bella squashed the thought at once. But could not quite banish it.
So she said to Kevin that she would be grateful for any help she could get.
Before the end of the week, she had a friendly human dynamo in the shape of Trudy, mother of two and hotshot administrator, who was going spare at home while the children were busy with nursery school and playgroup. Within two days she had set up a spreadsheet with a To Do list plus target dates and notes of people to be consulted.
She also gave Bella some shrewd advice. ‘Lady Pansy is straight out of the quill pen era. Not her fault, but she needs managing.’
Bella gave a hollow laugh. ‘But how?’
‘You have to pre-empt her. Be pro-active. Set up meetings with her, put them in the diary, keep them short. Make her feel key to the whole process, but stop her picking up the phone every time she thinks of something else.’
It worked.
Of course, Lady Pansy didn’t like it. To begin with she forgot to copy her messages to Trudy. But when she found that Bella re-routed all her text messages to her new PA and kept her telephone permanently set to voice mail, she gave in. There was a difficult little meeting when she suggested, with great sweetness, that Bella was finding her new role too overwhelming.
‘Maybe you ought to move into the Palace? I can mention it to Her Majesty. We are having coffee this morning.’
The prospect was hair-raising. Bella knocked it on the head fast.
>
‘That’s very kind, Lady Pansy. But not necessary, thank you. I think I have worked out how to balance my work life with everything I need to do for the wedding. I’ll review the situation with Richard in a few weeks. And this is how I see it working …’
She presented Lady Pansy with the new timetable. Bella would still go to the Palace to meet her, but she would do it on a regular timetable: at 2 p.m. on Monday to review stuff that had come in at the weekend and make any changes needed to the week; a quick catch up on Wednesday at 5.30 p.m.; the major review and planning meeting of the week to be two hours on Friday morning. With adjustment to her childcare management, Trudy thought she could generally manage to attend the Friday meeting. Lady Pansy was to pass any questions to Trudy who would prioritise and manage while Bella was at work.
Lady Pansy knew when she had been outmanoeuvred. Her phone calls slowed to a trickle.
Bella and Trudy spoke at lunch-time every day.
‘You need to pace yourself,’ Trudy advised. ‘Plan to do one thing at a time and stick to it. Wedding dress this week. Bridesmaids the next.’
‘Oh, God, bridesmaids! I haven’t thought about bridesmaids.’
‘Next week,’ said Trudy firmly.
Yet it was Richard who found the solution to the wedding-dress problem.
‘Of course you can’t have a dress you hate,’ he said vehemently. ‘You’ll be looking at photographs of it for the rest of your life.’
‘But tradition …’
He took her left hand and looked at the ring. ‘We can set some of our own traditions.’
She searched his face. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Of course.’
‘Your mother had the full meringue, and so did your grandmother.’
He snorted. ‘And my great, great ever so great grandmother wore a dress of total bling. Your point is?’
Bella was stunned. ‘Bling? How do you know? I don’t believe you.’
‘Would I lie to you? Look, I’ll prove it.’
They were in his flat, padding around in earlymorning disarray. He went over to his desk and switched on the laptop.
‘Look. Here.’
Bella went and peered over his shoulder. He had called up a Regency sketch of a man in knee breeches and an elaborate jacket leading a girl in a slim, high-waisted, low-cut dress, with puffed sleeves trimmed with lace. Her hair had been screwed into a knot on top of her head and she was not wearing a veil. Bella peered closely.
‘Silver lamé on net over a tissue slip,’ she read. ‘It was embroidered at the bottom with silver lamé shells and flowers. The manteau – oh, I see, that was the train – the manteau was of silver tissue lined with white satin, with a border of embroidery to answer that on the dress and fastened in front with a splendid diamond ornament.’ She looked up. ‘Heavens, she must have looked like a Christmas tree.’
Richard’s lips quirked. ‘Especially when you think of all the candles they’d have needed.’ He flickered his fingers. ‘Glitter, glitter, glitter. What about going the whole hog and reviving the traditions of 1816, then?’
Bella kicked him, not very successfully as her feet were bare.
He held her off, looking injured. ‘Only trying to be helpful.’
‘No, you weren’t. If you were really being helpful, you’d tell me who I should get to make the dress,’ Bella said with a sigh. She looked fondly at her ring. ‘You have a really good eye. Haven’t you got a favourite young dress designer as well?’
‘Well, I suppose I could ask around,’ he said doubtfully. ‘But it’s terrible bad luck, isn’t it? I don’t care, but a lot of people do. No point in giving the insects something else to exercise their mandibles on.’
‘You’re probably right. I think my mother would worry too. She’s quite superstitious. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.’ Bella glanced at the screen again, and said wistfully, ‘Did you see that they got married in Carlton House? Family and fifty guests, that’s all. Those were the days.’
They had decided to marry in the Cathedral. It was beautiful, of course, but not, as Bella said, human-sized. Besides, there was a huge echo. It made their footsteps on the marble floor sound like Death treading ponderously up from the vaults to claim a soul. That was something she did not say.
Richard knew she wasn’t comfortable with it. He also knew – they both did – that there wasn’t really an alternative.
So now he gave her a quick hug and said, ‘Look, what about a Working Party?’
‘What?’
‘OK, you can’t see off the Meringue Party without support. So get some.’
‘What do you mean? How?’
‘Think who you would have asked if you hadn’t been marrying me.’ He winced a little at the thought. ‘I just bet your grandmother has ideas about wedding dresses.’
He had responded to the summons to meet Georgia far better than Bella had dared to hope, especially as her grandmother had grilled him with ladylike thoroughness and there had been several dodgy moments.
The turning point had come, though, when Georgia, ramrod straight and acid sweet, said, ‘Are you saying that you knew you would get my granddaughter the moment you saw her? Like buying a painting?’
Richard smiled down at her and said, very gently, ‘I love her, Mrs Greenwood. I don’t own her and I never will.’
Georgia’s eyes snapped and Bella held her breath.
But in the end her grandmother said grudgingly, ‘Ah. You see that. Good.’
And in the car home, Richard said, ‘It’s not a word I normally use but that woman is truly awesome. A Southern Belle with fabulous manners and an interrogation technique that MI5 could learn from. And she looks like one of those classy old movie stars, Lauren Bacall or someone. And she’s out saving the rain forest in person.’ He drew a long, astounded breath. ‘I thought your father would be great to meet. But – wow. Just – wow! I think I’m in love.’
So now Bella said teasingly, ‘You just want to meet my grandmother again.’
He nodded enthusiastically. ‘If we work the schedule right, I could even give her, I mean all of you, lunch.’
‘Machiavelli.’
He laughed, not denying it, but said soberly, ‘Call her, Bella. Your mother too. Every girl wants to consult her mother about her wedding dress, doesn’t she? No one could criticise you for that. Maybe Lottie, too? Get them all in a room together, schmooze a bit, and come out with a better brief for the designers. Include Pansy and whoever she wants to bring along. Just make sure she’s outnumbered. She looks like a sweet little old lady, but Pansy can be quite an operator when she wants to be.’
‘Thank you,’ said Bella, surprised and grateful. ‘That sounds like a plan. Er – have you any ideas about bridesmaids?’
‘Out of my league,’ he said with feeling.
But Bella found an unexpected ally on the bridesmaid issue and she didn’t have to go looking for her.
Princess Eleanor wandered into the Wednesday catch-up meeting with Lady Pansy and said, ‘Have you seen the daffodils by the lake, Bella? Do you fancy a walk? It’s so lovely and fresh outside now that the rain’s gone.’
Bella leaped up with alacrity and, as they wandered along the banks of the lake, her soon-to-be sister-in-law said, ‘Have people started lobbying you about being a bridesmaid yet?’
Bella bit her lip. ‘Yes. It was a bit of a shock, actually.’
‘Well, this is a bit of a cheek. But I’m lobbying, too.’
‘Eleanor—’
‘Call me Nell, like the boys do. I’ve been thinking about bridesmaids since I was at school. All my little friends fancied being mine.’ She pulled a face. ‘So I’ve got some theories. Wanna hear them?’
‘Very grateful,’ said Bella, touched.
‘You need your best friend. Plus a sister or cousin or whoever. And a sister or cousin from the bridegroom’s family. One small attendant. One to mind the small attendant. But the important thing is that they’re your bridesmaids. Not your h
usband’s. Not your mother’s. Not your mother-in-law’s. Yours. These women have to get you through the day, so you need to like them. Don’t be blackmailed into asking anyone you don’t want. If there’s someone you absolutely have to include but can’t face on the day itself, you can always ask her to your Hen Night.’
‘Hen Night,’ murmured Bella, committing it to memory. Something else she had forgotten.
However, when Lady Pansy produced her big file labelled Bridesmaids, and started to run through the daughters of the country’s senior aristocrats, along with their family’s service to the Crown over the last two hundred years, Bella was able to say that she had already decided who she was going to ask to be her bridesmaids, thank you.
Lady Pansy stiffened. But Bella had run her choice past Richard who had not only approved but said, when he stopped laughing, ‘And you called me Machiavelli!’ So she knew she was on firm ground.
‘Princess Eleanor. She’s already said yes. My second cousin Joanne. So has she. Tilly Lenane, because she’s Richard’s goddaughter and I think she’s a sweetie. Chloe, because I know how big a part she’s always been of the Royal Family’s life, as you are yourself.’
Lady Pansy inclined her head graciously. She seemed taken aback but pleased, definitely pleased.
So while she was preening, Bella slipped in the news that would make Lady P as sick as a parrot when she started to think about it. ‘And my best friend Charlotte Hendred will be my Chief Bridesmaid, of course. So if you would just find out from Tilly Lenane’s parents and your niece whether they’re happy to trot down the aisle after me, we’re sorted I think, Lady Pansy.’
‘Of course,’ said Lady Pansy. She looked sandbagged. Yes! Result.
With that, the arrangements went swimmingly. After consultation with the King, the Press Office organised a bunch of interviews and think pieces.
‘I told them to leave you alone to get on with it, my dear,’ the King told Bella, when she and Richard joined the rest of the Royal Family for supper, one cool spring evening. ‘I said to Julian Madoc, “I like her style. She’s got a good head on her shoulders and she’s very well behaved.” Unlike some,’ he added with a dark look at Nell, who pretended not to see.