Miss Lovell, now?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘So, Amy, are you looking for someone in particular?’
‘Just someone to talk to. I know quite a lot of these people by sight, and a few of them well enough to say how d’you do, but no one at all to attach myself to and ask why I feel like an ostrich in my own home at my own sister’s wedding. Except for you, that is. Oh, I could go downstairs and dance with Johnny Guild or somebody, and then go out on the balcony and do some damp embracing. But if I stay up here I thought I might be able to step across to where debutantes don’t tread. Like Richard did, last night.’
Amy was conscious that she wasn’t sounding quite rational. It must be the champagne. Another of the day’s images drifted into her head, of the Duchess of York in the church, floating blue feathers framing her face.
Tony was looking at her levelly. ‘You don’t look anything like an ostrich. You look … extremely beautiful. I always thought you would be more beautiful than Isabel, once you grew into yourself.’
Amy stared back at him. He had very light hazel eyes, and eyebrows that went up in peaks. She felt a faint flush of colour rising in her face.
‘Let’s find somewhere to sit down,’ he said. ‘Debutantes never tread anywhere near me, will that do? And I think I can promise that I won’t embrace you, damply or otherwise.’
As she followed him, Amy wondered why that seemed to amuse him.
They found a sofa in an alcove. A tall fern in a white marble urn dipped in front of them like a screen. Tony put a champagne glass into her hand.
‘Now. What’s the matter?’ he asked her.
Amy considered. It was partly losing Isabel, of course, but only partly. There was something bigger than that, less tangible and so more frightening. Amy had the growing sense that she was adrift, directionless and isolated. She had watched Isabel dancing through her successful Seasons, aware of the options open to her and coolly accepting them. Isabel had chosen, and today was the celebration of her continuing to walk on down the broad, comfortable path laid down for her from the day of her birth. Amy had never felt at ease in the way that Isabel seemed to. When she looked at her own version of the path it was flat and uninviting, yet the country on either side of it seemed hostile, or impenetrable, or obscured. She was both bored and apprehensive, disenchanted and anxious, and the combination was uncomfortable.
‘I … don’t quite know what to do. Or how to talk about it,’ she began.
Tony leaned back and lit a cigarette. ‘Is it a love affair of some kind? Or something awkward like a baby? Surely not?’
Amy laughed in spite of herself, and Tony thought that when her face came alive it was enchanting. Most men, he considered, would find her irresistible.
‘No. No, nothing like that. Much less identifiable. I think I’m frightened of not being able to belong. Not to the kind of life that’s offered to me, or even to the kind of life that Mother has created for herself. I don’t want to find myself a scion of the shires, or a bright hope of the Tory Party like Peter. The men I meet are all the same, and they make me feel the same. Rather chilly, and hollow.’
‘Not very enticing,’ Tony agreed.
‘So if I’m not going to marry …’
‘I wouldn’t assume that immediately, you know. How old are you? Nineteen?’
‘Yes. Old enough to know, I think.’
‘Perhaps. Is it likely that you might prefer women?’
Amy held out her glass to have it refilled. She was laughing so much that the froth spilled over her fingers.
‘Tony, what d’you think I am? If not pregnant, then a lesbian?’
‘I don’t know what you are,’ he said equably. ‘You tell me. I’m just eliminating the worst possibilities.’
‘I don’t think I prefer women. A man kissed me once, years and years ago, and that meant more to me than all the men I’ve met and danced with and half-heartedly allowed to kiss me ever since. He was the waiter, Luis, in the hotel in Biarritz, do you remember?’
‘Did he now? Yes, I remember him. Go on.’
Amy took a deep breath. ‘I want something to do. To believe in, if you like. Something real, and valuable. Richard asked me last night what I do all day, and it amounts to shopping, being fitted for clothes, meeting girlfriends and having lunch, going to parties and staying in people’s houses. Helping Father to entertain when Mother isn’t here. At Chance, riding and playing tennis. Seeing neighbours and people on the estate. It isn’t enough.’
‘For many people, you know, it would be more than enough. It would be Paradise.’
Amy’s face went a dull crimson. ‘I know,’ she said humbly. ‘Does that condemn me completely?’
‘No, it doesn’t. Let’s try to think. What could you do?’
‘Richard says that your office was full of girls doing things. I can speak French and German and a little Spanish. I can paint a bit, and a few other useless things. Could I be a secretary? Could I be your secretary?’
Tony tried not to let his smile broaden. ‘I don’t think so. Most secretaries have to be able to type and take shorthand, you know.’
‘I could learn.’
‘Yes. Look, there must be other girls of your class in your position. They must do things to which there could be no possible parental or social opposition. Can’t you think of any?’
‘There’s Welfare work. Charity organizing. That sort of thing.’
‘Wouldn’t that do?’
Amy’s disappointment showed. ‘It means sitting on committees for charity balls, and bazaars. Raising money. Addressing envelopes for appeals. I would have liked an ordinary job, perhaps something that might help people. Whatever they’re doing out there.’ She gestured over the heads of the crowd and beyond the walls with their white silk drapes.
Tony’s eyebrows worked themselves into triangular peaks. ‘Out there? In Bruton Street?’
‘No, damn it. Not Bruton Street.’
‘Amy, how much do you really know about ordinary people and the work they do?’
‘Nothing. I’m asking you to help me find out. Look, you took Richard somewhere last night. Would you take me out sometimes, too? I’d like to meet some people who aren’t anything like these. There isn’t anyone else I can ask. If I mentioned it to Johnny Guild, he’d say, “Oh, I say, Amy, what for? I hate slumming.” If I could broaden my horizons a little, it might help me to know a little bit better what I’d like to do. Is that reasonable?’
Tony sighed. ‘My dear. Downstairs you have the entire British aristocracy. If someone dropped a bomb now we’d have an instant socialist state. Up here is the cream of London’s fashionable intelligentsia. One notorious poet there. Two well-known actresses there, ignoring each other. A beautiful divorcee here with very high
