There were ten courses – at least seven too many, Flora felt. She had nibbled around the meat, shocked at the number of animals Mrs Stacey must have roasted, stewed or curried that day.
When Mr George finally took the men off for brandy and cigars, Flora followed the women into the drawing room and sipped her coffee quietly as idle gossip passed over her head, mostly about women who had been seen around the city with men who were not their husbands. She listened with a mixture of fascination and horror. Perhaps she was simply naive, but she had presumed that marriage was sacrosanct.
‘So, have you any young man in mind for Flora?’ Lady Alington asked Mrs Keppel.
‘Perhaps Flora has ideas of her own,’ her sponsor replied, throwing Flora a piercing glance.
‘Oh, and who might the lucky gentleman be?’
‘I . . . goodness, I am just arrived in London,’ Flora replied diplomatically.
‘Well, I am sure it won’t be long before someone snaps you up, what with Mrs Keppel’s patronage. There are plenty of winter dances at which you’ll have the opportunity to cast your eye around. Although most of the decent beaux have already been taken.’
Since Archie’s enforced departure from her life yesterday, Flora was perfectly happy to return to her original plan and spend the rest of her days alone.
Once everyone had left, Mrs Keppel kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Goodnight, my dear, and may I just say that you acquitted yourself well. I was proud of you tonight. You see, George, I was right about her,’ she said to her husband as he led her out of the room.
‘You were, my dear, but then, when are you ever wrong?’ Flora heard him say as they mounted the stairs.
Flora had asked Moiselle and Mrs Keppel’s permission to take Sonia to Kew Gardens for the day. Mr Rolfe had already arranged for the motor car to take them there and Flora was tingling with excitement at the thought of being surrounded by nature and studying rare specimens. Even if the diversion she had created was likely to remind her of Archie.
‘I will not let him spoil it,’ she told herself firmly.
‘Sorry, Miss Flora,’ Peggie said as she arrived in Flora’s room with her breakfast tray, ‘but Mrs Keppel wishes you to join her and a guest for tea this afternoon. She says you will have to go to your gardens another day.’
‘Oh.’ Flora bit her lip. ‘Do you know who the guest is?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough, miss, but I will be attending on you before you join them in Mrs Keppel’s parlour. I will see you here at three o’clock prompt.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Flora said to Sonia when she saw her in the day nursery and she expressed disappointment at the cancelled outing. ‘I am sure Moiselle wouldn’t mind if we went instead to St James’s Park for a walk this morning. We’ll have to promise to speak French all the way there and back.’ Flora winked at her. ‘How are you this morning, Violet?’ she asked, turning to her.
‘I am well, thank you. My best friend Vita is coming here for lunch after lessons. We have a half-day at school.’
‘I see.’
‘I shall expect you to be here at one o’clock prompt, Nannie,’ Violet said.
As she walked from the room, Nannie raised an eyebrow at Violet’s imperiousness.
‘And I can tell you, Miss Sackville-West is a very strange kettle of fish altogether,’ Nannie whispered to Flora. ‘I’m only glad she isn’t in my nursery. You should hear the two of them, discussing books and literature like they were proper professors. Takes herself very seriously, does that one. And Violet’s right obsessed with her, there’s no denying it.’
‘Then I am eager to meet her.’
‘Well now, Miss Flora, I’d say that one way and another, you have an interesting day ahead of you.’
The walk through St James’s Park with Sonia was just what Flora needed. The October day was bright if chilly and the leaves were beginning to turn all shades of amber, burnished gold and red, dropping to create a vibrant carpet beneath their feet.
‘Look.’ Flora pointed to a rooftop high above them on the edge of the park. ‘Can you see the swallows gathering? They’re preparing to fly south to Africa. Winter is on its way.’
‘Oh my, Africa!’ gasped Sonia, watching the swallows chattering to each other. ‘That’s an awfully long way. What happens if they feel tired when they’re flying across the sea?’
‘Good question, and the answer is that I really don’t know. Perhaps they fly down and hitch a ride on a boat. Look, there’s a squirrel. He’s probably gathering nuts to store in his house for winter. He’ll go to sleep very soon; we won’t see him again until the spring.’
‘I wish I was a squirrel.’ Sonia wrinkled her small nose. ‘I’d like to go to sleep for the winter too.’
Arriving home just in time for lunch in the day nursery, Flora sat down at the table with the staff and children. Violet barely looked up from her conversation, conducted in intense whispers with her friend, a dark-eyed, sallow-skinned child with short brown hair and a slim torso. If she hadn’t known this was a girl, Flora might well have taken her for a boy. She was struck by the odd intimacy between them: Violet touched Vita’s hand constantly, and at one point even rested her hand lightly on the other girl’s knee.
‘Nannie, Vita and I will now retire to my room. Vita wishes to read me her new poems.’
‘Does she indeed?’ Nannie muttered under her breath. ‘Well, mind you’re back down here at three o’clock prompt, for when Miss Vita’s nanny arrives to take her home. Your mother has her special guest arriving at four and the house must be quiet. You’re to join them at five, Miss Flora,’ Nannie added as she took Sonia off to wash her face, and Vita and Violet left the room arm in arm behind them.
At three o’clock, Barny entered Flora’s room with a dress draped over her arm.
‘Mrs Keppel wishes you to wear this one for tea, so I took it downstairs to give it a freshen-up.’
Flora sat down at the dressing table to let Barny tease her hair into ordered rather than wild ringlets, held neatly by sharp-toothed mother-of-pearl combs. Then subjecting herself to the dreaded whalebone corset, she considered that, despite Mrs Keppel’s overt generosity, she was starting to feel rather like an oversized doll being dressed up on the whim of her owner. Not that there was a lot to do about it without seeming hugely ungrateful. As Barny fastened the cream and blue striped gown, Flora thought that for all of society’s insistence that men wished their women to be trussed up, painted and adorned, she remembered climbing Scafell in her father’s breeches. And how it hadn’t seemed to matter to Archie one jot . . .
‘Miss Flora?’
‘Yes?’ She dragged herself back from her daydream.
‘I was asking whether you can fasten the earrings tighter. Lord help us if one fell off into your teacup this afternoon!’