The Decision Read Free

that would be something she might do. It would be a start anyway. A start to her career.
    In spite of her decision, taken in such sumptuous circumstances, Eliza was still a virgin as the date for her dance approached. Lots of her friends claimed to have Done It, or rather implied they had – but she suspected most of them were lying. Everyone was petrified of getting pregnant, and it had been dinned into them by their mothers that girls with bad reputations were usually finished in the marriage market. Some boys were very badly behaved, of course, and there were lots of stories of girls being found in compromising situations in bedrooms and libraries and even wine cellars in country houses, but somehow, it just hadn’t happened to her; and she really didn’t want the occasion rushed through. She wanted it to take place in style.
    Besides, she’d been terribly busy, had had a wonderfully successful time. She’d been to literally dozens of dances and cocktail parties; she’d had a starring role in the Berkeley Dress Show, that great annual opportunity for debs to be models for a day, and managed to catch the eye of the photographer from the Evening Standard and hit the front page, wearing a white evening dress by Hartnell. And at Queen Charlotte’s Ball – the Harlots’ Ball as the Debs’ Delights called it – she had been quite near the front in the line of girls pulling the giant cake into the ballroom: yet another photograph in the tabloids.
    And then there was her own dance, so much discussed and planned – what should she wear, how many of the girls she ‘owed to’ had to be invited, even whether she should share with someone, which was the classic means of halving the cost – but she categorically refused. It was to be her night, and hers alone. It had passed far too quickly, a magical fairy-tale evening, when she’d felt like a story-book heroine, just drifted by without any clear memories of anything, except fragments: the perfect June night, the garden filled with roses, the white marquee so gorgeously dressed up, the crowds and crowds of friends, the band playing exactly what she wanted, the endless champagne, her father flushed with pride, her mother kissing her and telling her how proud of her they were. She’d danced and danced, literally till dawn, with an endless flow of charming young men and then fallen into bed, amazed that she wasn’t drunker, considering how much champagne she had consumed.
    It was the crown on a wonderful summer; and she wished it need never end.
    Her mother was pale but happy next morning, relieved at the success of the dance, relieved it was finally over. It had occupied her thoughts and fed her anxieties for almost a year; but it seemed to have been worth it.
    Worth the bank loan Adrian had had to take out, the sleepless nights, the endless work. The expense hadn’t stopped at Eliza’s dance, of course, it was all the attendant expenditure: Eliza’s six dance dresses, two of them long for the grander dances, one white for Queen Charlotte’s Ball, her clothes for Ascot and Henley, Sarah’s own dresses, all the hats and shoes and gloves, the mums’ luncheons, the pre-dance dinners – but it was all an investment in Eliza’s future, and not even to be questioned.
    Having her dance at home in the country, rather than in London, had saved a lot, and was so much nicer, everyone had (apparently genuinely) said and certainly numbers had not been in the least affected.
    Eliza’s dress had been from Belville Sassoon again – but Sarah had had her own dress run up by her dressmaker and Adrian’s tailcoat being a little worn and slightly out of date was desirable rather than the reverse. Nothing more common than spanking-new evening clothes on the older generation; people might even think, heaven forbid, they’d been hired. Adrian had bought his coat soon after they had first met; she had invited him to a dance in the country and, seeing where Sarah Cunninghame’s