PENNY JORDAN - Silk

Since the comtesse was reluctant to exchange the warmth of her fireside, Amber quickly discovered that her lessons in ‘social graces’ involved little more than listening to the comtesse’s friends talk over afternoon tea.

It was a lonely life for a young woman.

Amber was aware that Lady Rutland took Louise to lunch and tea parties from which she was excluded – Louise was only too keen to tell her about them, smirking when she explained that they were ‘family’ invitations and that ‘naturally’ Amber wasn’t invited, and yet at the same time making it obvious that this was just a fiction and that in reality the parties were being given by the mothers of the other débutantes who would be coming out that season, and who didn’t want to invite Amber.

Shrewdly Amber wondered how much of that was because of her background and how much because Lady Rutland herself did not want her included, because her presence was a reminder of her own financial problems.

Her grandmother would feel that Lady Rutland was not keeping to her side of their bargain, Amber knew, but she didn’t care about not being invited to the pre-season parties. In fact, the truth was that she was glad that she didn’t have to go.

Despite the cold winter wind, Amber’s footsteps slowed as she approached the Vacani School of Dancing for her late morning lesson.

She had come to dread the hours she had to spend here. Not because of the teachers – they were kindness itself – but because some of the girls, a group led by Louise, had been quick to see how difficult Amber was finding it to master the curtsy, and delighted in mocking her behind the teachers’ backs.

Now Amber dreaded the lessons and her own humiliation. It seemed the harder she tried, the more impossible it was to place her feet in the correct position alongside the barre, holding it with her right hand, and then sink down and rise up again smoothly, with her back straight, as all the débutantes had to do to their teachers’ satisfaction before being allowed to move on to the next stage.

Louise curtsied as though she had been born doing it, which in a way, of course, she had – or at least she had been born to do it, Amber acknowledged miserably as she removed her coat in the cloakroom and changed into her indoor shoes, before making her way into the classroom.

It didn’t matter how patient and kind Miss Marguerite was, Amber just knew she was not going to be able to perform a proper curtsy, and that she would disgrace herself and, more importantly, her grandmother. She shuddered at the very thought.

Today she seemed to be struggling more than ever. At last, though, the lesson was over, but not Amber’s humiliation.

Louise walked past her arm in arm with one of the other débutantes, pausing within deliberate earshot to announce in a loud voice, ‘ Of course the Macclesfield mill girl can’t curtsy properly. She hasn’t got the breeding. Have you seen her dance? She’s like a cart horse.’ Louise mimicked an exaggerated imitation of someone dancing clumsily, before doing a wobbly faked curtsy and then falling over. ‘It’s like Mummy says: you simply can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, or a silk mill girl into a member of the aristocracy.’

One of the other girls tittered and then another giggled openly, whilst even those who were not part of Louise’s set turned away from Amber – as though she had the plague or something, Amber thought wretchedly. Just like Barrant de Vries had rejected her grandmother? It was a strange sensation to feel that she had something in common with that formidable old lady.

Blanche’s letters to her were full of commands to do what she was told, and to remember how very fortunate she was. It was hard to imagine someone as controlled and determined as her grandmother ever allowing anyone to reject her.

In the cloakroom Amber was once again ignored whilst the other girls chattered together. Amber could hear Louise’s voice quite plainly.

‘I’ll see you at Lady Wilson-Byer’s lunch party, Anthea? I think most of us have been invited, haven’t we? Oh, except you, of course, Amber. Sorry. Mummy did say to tell you that you’d have to amuse yourself today. I forgot.’

She would not cry, Amber told herself fiercely, bending her head over her outdoor shoes as she fastened them.

She was supposed to be going to Norman Hartnell for a fitting for one of the new dresses she would wear once the round of pre- and post-presentation parties began properly, but Amber headed instead for Piccadilly and the National Gallery.

In such an alien and unwanted new world, the National Gallery, which she had visited so often with her parents, had become her private refuge, and normally just breathing its air was enough to calm her, but today the humiliation stung too badly for that panacea.

She stood in front of her father’s favourite portrait of Lorenzo the Magnificent, trying as she always did to look at it with his eyes and expertise. He had loved it because he could almost feel the weight of the fabric – Florentine silk, dyed in Bruges, its colour set with alum – and she could hear his voice now and see his smile.

‘The Medici never did manage to gain control of the alum trade from the Pope,’ she said out loud, lost in a past that was far happier than her present.

‘And was that God’s will, do you suppose, that the might of the Pope’s prayers should outweigh the Medici’s Machiavellian negotiating powers?’

Amber jumped. She hadn’t even realised that she herself had spoken aloud, never mind that a man standing behind her had overheard and was now replying.

Blushing self-consciously she shook her head.

Laughing, her new companion told her, ‘Personally, I think it a shame that the Medici didn’t succeed, but then I’ve always had a soft spot for them, especially old Lorenzo. He knew to a nicety how to combine self-interest with piety.’

Amber had never seen such a physically beautiful human being. He was almost too perfect, surely far too beautiful for a man: tall and slender, with very dark wavy hair, brilliantly green eyes and very pale skin. His profile made the artist within her catch her breath. He was dressed in a suit that fitted him like no suit she had ever seen any man wear before, the fabric so fluid and yet so perfectly cut that her greedy gaze wanted to absorb every detail of it. What was it? Wool with silk? She ached to reach out and touch it.

‘Do you have a particular interest in the Medici?’

His voice was as rich as the best quality velvet, changing tone and colour, warming and cooling in a way that mesmerised her.

‘Not really. My father loved this painting, although he said that there were others he had seen in Leningrad that were even better. My parents used to bring me here and tell me all about the history of silk.’

‘Silk?’ He was being polite.

‘I’m sorry. I’m keeping you and being very dull.’ She made to move away, but he shook his head and told her firmly, ‘No such thing. I confess I know very little about the history of silk. Look, there’s a bench over there; let’s go and sit down and you can enlighten me.’

Amber opened her mouth to refuse politely, but somehow she found that before she could do so she was seated next to him, answering his questions about her family and her home, and confiding in him in a way she could never have imagined herself doing with a stranger.

‘So your grandmother refused to allow you to go to art school and instead she has sent you to London to learn to curtsy so that you can be presented at a drawing room under the auspices of Lady Rutland, and thus find a titled husband, only you won’t be able to do so because you can’t curtsy?’ It was an admirable précis of her garbled explanations.