Park Lane by Frances Osborne

Author:Frances Osborne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780345803290
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 2012-06-11T21:00:00+00:00

14

BEA IS HOOKED, LACED AND PINNED, WITH A SATIN puddle train trailing behind her. As she twists to look in the glass, the beaded tassels on the long end of her tunic knock against her ankles. She pins on the diamond lace brooch Mother has given her for her unmentionable twenty-first birthday today. At tea there was a cake with only a vague half a dozen candles allowed, and barely enough time to blow them out before everyone dashed upstairs to start changing.

I look all right, she thinks, the pale blue is a little cool, but pretty enough. She doesn’t mind looking coolish tonight. Rather fits the mood she wants to display, even if she is already in knots over what she is to do tomorrow. She tries to focus on the evening immediately ahead of her rather than the day that will follow it, but her head simply fills with the worry of how many conversations she will have to have without letting on that there is anything the slightest bit interesting in her life. Thank God nobody would dream of asking her what she is up to. In their eyes it is a pointless question. Unmarried girls are looking for husbands.

And no doubt they’ve heard about John. Mrs Vinnicks has probably taken out a half-page notice in the papers.

The dinner before the dance is at eight sharp. Officially a cosy, close family meal, the table is bending with silver and numbers have stretched to eighteen. Bea looks down the length of the table. Seated alongside each side, the party is a chequerboard of monochrome men and silk dresses that deepen in colour with the age of the wearer. Clemmie is in a green just darker than pastel, and Mother in a near-blinding mauve. It is not, however, the deepest colour there as, for the most part, the guests are not young. Bea is next to a member of the Cabinet so heavily moustachioed that she wonders whether its tips will leap the gap between them during the meal. On the other side she has a florid newspaper baron overflowing his seat. She has a friend, she tells him, writing this extraordinary essay, captures a political mood we cannot ignore. Food still in his mouth, he invites her to tea to discuss it further, with a look that makes her feel more than a little uncomfortable. Bea automatically smiles and nods in that way of saying yes to an invitation one has no intention of ever taking up, but as she does so she realises that maybe she should go, if she is serious about helping Mr Campbell. And of course she is: the idea of not doing so, not throwing herself behind someone who was speaking with such passion, that’s the word, passion, is surely absurd.

It’s ten o’clock, and the more elderly of the dance guests start to arrive. Bea is in a receiving line at the top of the stairs, sandwiched between Edward and Clemmie, who has

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