Chapter 3

AT BROWN’S HOTEL

STILL JULY 9

Things are certainly looking up for G. Rannoch these days. Brown’s and a spending spree with Mummy and then a transatlantic crossing. Golly.

The red evening dress was rather the worse for Queenie’s packing and I saw Mummy’s face when I went into her room to go down to dinner. “Whoever told you that red was your color, darling?” she demanded. “Don’t you possess any decent clothing?”

“I have the outfit that Coco Chanel bought for me at the Galeries Lafayette,” I said, “but that’s up in Scotland. There wouldn’t be time to telephone Fig and have it sent down to London, would there?”

“Knowing your sister-in-law she’d probably flush it down the nearest loo and then claim she couldn’t find it,” Mummy said. “Let’s just hope there are a few decent-looking outfits to be found in London tomorrow. Although God knows where we will find them.” She was prowling around me, examining me as if she were a tiger sizing up her next meal. “It’s a pity you are so impossibly large,” she said, “or you could wear some of my things. Max loves me to buy new clothes and I never know what to do with the old ones. But I fear I have nothing you’d fit into.”

“You make me sound like a giant,” I said. “I’m only five foot six. You’re the one who is small.”

“Petite, darling. I’m petite. Too bad you inherited the robust physique of those Scottish ancestors. The royal side were small enough, just those wretched hearty Scots must be to blame.”

“Darcy seems to like me the way I am,” I said.

“I’ve found that men are often blinded by love,” she said. “Never mind, we’ll have you looking respectable, if not fashionable, by the time we leave.”

THE NEXT MORNING we set off right after breakfast. “Might as well try Fenwick’s first since they are just around the corner on Bond Street,” she said. But half an hour later she had declared them too impossibly frumpy. “You’ll be dining on the Berengaria with me, darling. They can’t get the impression that I let my only child run around in rags.”

“You have until now,” I wanted to say. My mother had only popped into my life on rare occasions and it had never crossed her mind that I had no money and had been surviving on baked beans on toast.

She hailed a taxicab. “Harrods might just have something,” she said.

“Selfridges is closer,” I pointed out.

She looked at me in horror. “Selfridges is where typists and lower-middle-class housewives shop,” she said, conveniently forgetting again that she had been born in the back streets of the East End.

So we went to Harrods where doormen leaped and bowed, murmuring, “Welcome back, Your Grace. It’s been too long.”

Mummy swept in, ordering a jar of her favorite face cream as she passed the cosmetics counter, a pair of red leather gloves and matching beret, suitable for a sea cruise, before she took the lift to ladies’ dresses. A formidable woman bore down on us. “And how can I assist madame?” she asked.

“You can find me an assistant young enough to have a feel for what is fashionable this season,” Mummy said. “I’m taking my daughter on a sea cruise.”

“That young lady is never madame’s daughter,” the woman said in her silky voice and gave a false titter. “Your sister, surely.”

Since she had been one of the few people in the civilized world who had failed to recognize my mother and give her the appropriately groveling greeting, Mummy had taken an instant dislike to her. “I should point out that ‘that young lady’ is Lady Georgiana Rannoch,” she said. “Cousin to His Majesty. She will be seen as an ambassador of her country when we visit America. We want to do Britain proud, don’t we?”

The woman’s face was now rather red. “Oh, we do. We do. Forgive me for not recognizing you immediately. I will summon our Mademoiselle Dubois. She has recently joined us from Paris where she worked at the great couture houses. Allow me to escort you to a fitting room.”

“That told her,” Mummy muttered as the woman disappeared to find the fashionable Frenchwoman. “Sorry, but that remark about you being my sister got my goat. And fancy not recognizing me.”

There was a tap on the fitting room door and the woman, still red-faced, put her head around it. “Here is our young French assistant, madame,” she said. “Mademoiselle Dubois, I’m sure you’ll be able to find the perfect wardrobe for Lady Georgiana, won’t you?” And she stood aside to usher in a svelte, dark-haired young woman.

“Bonjour, and ’ow may I assist madame today,” she started to say, then a look of horror wiped the smile from her face. I swallowed back a gasp. I think Mummy did too. I waited until the senior saleswoman had closed the door behind her before the young Frenchwoman let out a sigh of relief.

“Crikey,” she said. “I thought you’d blow it for me.”

“Belinda!” I exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing here?”

My best friend, Belinda Warburton-Stoke, put her finger to her lips. “Shhhh,” she said. “I’m supposed to be Mademoiselle Dubois.”

“But why?”

“Money, darling—why else? I’m rather broke at the moment and I saw this advertisement for a fashion assistant with knowledge of haute couture, preferably French.”

“Belinda, you’re terrible.” I started to laugh.

“Not at all. I fit the bill perfectly. After all, I did work with Chanel and I designed my own line of clothing.”

“No, I’m sure you’re perfectly qualified. Just not French.”

“Well, I had to claim to be French to beat out the other candidates. Also I wouldn’t want word to get back to the family. Granny might cut me out of her will if she heard I’d gone into trade.”

“But what if you have to serve real French people?”

“I’ll have you know my French is damned good,” Belinda said. “We had three years at Les Oiseaux, didn’t we, and then I worked with Chanel in Paris. And my liaison with Jean-Luc taught me all sorts of words I’d never learned in school.”

“Jean-Luc—was he the one who was Chanel’s lover, and that’s why you were dismissed?”

“How good to see you again, Belinda dear,” Mummy interrupted. “I’d love to sit here chatting, but we have rather a lot to do in a short time. We need suitable clothing for a transatlantic crossing for Georgie. Silk evening pajamas, I think. She does have nice long legs. So maybe some linen slacks. A couple of decent tea dresses, although there won’t be time for alterations and I’m sure nothing off the peg fits properly.”

Belinda was wonderful. Within an hour I was kitted out with the sort of clothes I’d so admired on others—the white Chinese silk evening pajamas, a backless midnight blue evening dress that made me look almost sexy, slacks and jackets, silky floral-print dresses and even a velvet evening cape.

“You are lucky, going to America,” Belinda said wistfully as Mummy went off to write a check. “I can’t afford to travel anywhere at the moment.”

“No sugar daddies in sight?” I asked, “Or have you forsaken men for a life of respectability?”

“God, no,” she said. “I’m positively sex starved, but any man worth looking at has fled from London this summer. And I have no funds for travel, alas, and I’m no longer welcome at home. America sounds divine. Do write and tell me about all your exploits there. Shall you be going to Hollywood?”

“Only Nevada, I think,” I said.

“But that’s so close. You must go and see Hollywood. Who knows, perhaps you’ll be discovered while drinking a soda on Sunset Strip.”

“Fat chance of that,” I said, laughing. “Anyway, Mummy says she can’t be away long. Max will be pining.”

“She certainly doesn’t want to upset the applecart with Max,” Belinda agreed. “There are so few people with his kind of money these days. I think I may have to go and visit her in Germany. You don’t think Max might have any young rich relatives, do you?”

“I wouldn’t know. Personally I’d rather stay in England and be poor. I don’t like the sound of the way things are going in Germany.”

We broke off the conversation as Mummy reappeared. “Well, that’s done. They’ll hem the trousers and have them delivered to Brown’s by this afternoon. I must say the one thing one can count on from Harrods is efficiency. And I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the clothing too. Quite chic. We may find you a rich man on the boat after all, Georgie.” And she winked at Belinda.

Before I could answer this she was making for the lift.

“Write to me, and don’t forget . . .” Belinda started to say, then remembered she was supposed to be French. I blew her a kiss as I rushed to keep up with my mother. We emerged from the lift and Mummy swept grandly across the main floor, past bowing attendants and out to a waiting taxicab.