Sail Upon the Land by Josa Young

Author:Josa Young [Young, Josa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Keyes Ink
Published: 2014-12-01T07:00:00+00:00

The twins responded to the whole deb scene just as she’d hoped. They went out of their way to be nice to Peter, linking both his arms, one on each side, and whispering gossip into his ears to make him laugh. They knew exactly which side their bread was buttered, and could see that everyone thinking they were Hons meant a lot in that world. They relished the effect of their good looks and liveliness on the debs’ delights after years of single-sex boarding school.

The Season was no longer the preserve of gentry and aristocracy. The Royal Household didn’t police who could or couldn’t take part as it had in the strict old days of Drawing Rooms and Presentation to the monarch. The last trace of snooty exclusion left, like the whale’s hind leg, was applying for the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. It was money that counted for everything these days and the Season had been revivified by a healthy injection of cash and new blood after the nadir of the Seventies. Everyone grumbled that corporate entertaining was taking over the riverbanks at Henley and even Chelsea Flower Show. But for anyone who chose to be a deb, things went on much as they had before. The twins told their mother that they loved the debs’ tea parties, the inaugural events of any girl’s Season, and made lots of friends who were like themselves both in appearance and background. First generation private school so no need for elocution lessons. Margaret was not frightened of anything or anyone, but when she’d found out that Munty’s mother had worked in a shop and Melissa had been a doctor’s daughter, it certainly helped her social confidence.

Even so, after Munty had asked her to marry him one night in the Poule au Pot, Margaret had visited a discreet address in South Kensington to brush up on her vowel sounds. She still had refreshers regularly to make sure she kept control of a whole herd of brown cows.

She was exasperated to hear from the twins that Damson, who had tried one tea party, said it was boring and went back to her work experience at St Saviour’s Hospital.

Noonie and Clarrie were turning into the sensation of the Season. The newspapers loved them. They starred in the Berkeley Dress Show, dressed in the same styles in different colours. Damson was rejected as a model. She’d turned up to the audition late, looking a mess, and knew she was at least a size too big. Noonie and Clarrie had been ‘finished’ for a bit of polish after school, and had learned all kinds of useful stuff at Jilly Dupree’s establishment in Knightsbridge, from secretarial and modelling skills to deportment and grooming, even – using the frame of an old MG in the garden – how to get into and out of a sports car without showing their knickers. Damson had been studying for her Cambridge entrance exams down the road.

As for the Season itself, Margaret took her usual approach: educate herself thoroughly and get the best help and advice money could buy.

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