Highland Fling (30 page)

Suddenly, Jenny could bear it no longer. She was very tired, extremely anxious and everyone around her seemed to be living in an alternative universe.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I feel I should just point out that Ross Grant-Dempsey is not just a new eligible male who’s arrived in the area, up for grabs by any female under fifty, he is the man who holds the fate of Dalmain Mills in the palm of his hand. I have to have
written a viable plan for their continuation, having provided markets and outlets, and he wants it on Monday. I really have got more important things to do than to cook dinner parties for him!’

‘This is exactly my point!’ declared Lady Dalmain triumphantly. ‘If Ross Grant-Dempsey is so important to the mill, it is imperative that we entertain him decently. It’s events like these that oil the wheels of industry. You young things just don’t acknowledge the importance of old-fashioned hospitality.’

‘Quite right!’ agreed Henry. ‘Anyway, I don’t know why you’re being so difficult. You’ve cooked for business contacts of mine often enough.’

‘I give up! I obviously can’t make you understand. Perhaps I am overtired, perhaps later I will be able to explain how difficult it will be for me socialising with a man who may or may not put dozens of people out of work, practically the evening before he does it. But I must unpack first. Now, if you’ll excuse me!’

Her attempt to leave the room was halted by Felicity, who said, ‘Jenny!’ in a wobbly voice.

Certain that if Felicity cried now, she would come out in sympathy, Jenny raised a reassuring hand. ‘It’s all right, Felicity; I’m not refusing to help. I just need a bit of time to get my head round it.’

‘I expect you girls have been doing a spot of retail therapy,’ said Henry indulgently, making Jenny clench her teeth.

‘Oh no, Felicity never shops,’ said her mother. ‘She has agoraphobia, you know’

‘Actually, I did,’ said Felicity, pleased to contradict her mother. ‘I found I was all right if it wasn’t too crowded.’

‘Oh.’ Lady Dalmain wasn’t as pleased as she might have been. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been spending money like water!’

‘No, I wasn’t extravagant. But I also got quite a lot of Christmas shopping done.’

‘Christmas! Ghastly commercial event,’ said Lady Dalmain. ‘It’s only designed so shopkeepers can make money. And it’s not for ages yet.’

‘According to Oxford Street, Christmas is just round the corner,’ Felicity persisted. ‘And I think most people are fed up with getting hand-stitched cushions from me.’

‘Oh, I bet they’re not,’ murmured Jenny, desperate to leave the room.

‘Well, I refuse to think about Christmas until I have to,’ said Lady Dalmain, striking an unexpected chord with Jenny. ‘Let’s get this dinner party out of the way first.’

‘So I’ll just go and sort myself out,’ said Jenny firmly.

‘Oh, very well, but I would like to discuss the food with you. We might have to make it a fork supper.’

‘Fine,’ said Jenny, ‘as long as there is a caterer in the neighbourhood, and you’ve booked them.’

‘Jenny!’ The howl that greeted this was from everyone.

‘Oh, it’s all right. I’ll cook for your – dinner party.’ She would have sworn only she knew Henry would have lectured her about it, and cooking for any number of people would be preferable to that.

After she’d made herself feel more human, Jenny slipped out of the house to go and visit Meggie. The discussion about the party was still going at full
throttle. She hoped Henry wouldn’t spot her passing through the hall.

Meggie was satisfyingly agog for news. ‘Well?’ she demanded, opening the door, Anna in her arms, ‘Tell me all. Did he remember me? It’s all right; Iain’s out.’

‘You might offer me a cup of tea, or something. We got back to Dalmain House and all anyone can talk about is Lady D.’s wretched dinner party.’

‘Oh yes. We’ve been invited. I told her we’d have to bring Anna. She didn’t seem to understand that you couldn’t just leave a baby with someone for hours when you’re breast-feeding. Now, come with me into the kitchen. You can hold your goddaughter while I make tea.’

‘My goddaughter?’ Jenny took the sleeping bundle.

‘Yes. Didn’t I say? I mean, ask you? You were so much part of her birth. We’d love to have you.’

Jenny hooked a chair out from under the table with her foot. ‘The trouble is, it’ll be hard for us to keep in touch when I go back down south.’

Meggie dismissed this notion. ‘Rubbish! It’ll be a good excuse for you to keep on visiting dear Dalmain.’

Jenny laughed.

‘Now,’ said Meggie, when she had presented Jenny with a mug of hot water with a tea bag in it, a spoon, and a bottle of milk, ‘did Alan Frazier remember me?’

Jenny squashed the teabag with the spoon for a while, causing Meggie to whimper with frustration. ‘Oh, all right; yes, he did.’

Meggie blushed. ‘Here, let me take Anna, then you can drink your tea. Now, tell me everything.’

‘Well, I felt a complete fool because I’d forgotten to ask what your maiden name was.’

‘Oh God! I can’t believe I was so stupid not to tell you! What did you do?’

Jenny explained what had happened.

‘So you didn’t have to mention Heggie Johnstone’s twenty-first?’

‘No, but he did.’

‘What!’ Meggie’s exclamation caused Anna to stir in her sleep. ‘Oh, I’d better put her down.’

‘Seems a shame, such a pretty baby, nothing much wrong with her,’ murmured Jenny.

Meggie went into the sitting room and came back a moment later. ‘I can’t believe Alan remembered me! He was older than the rest of us, and all the girls fancied him like mad.’

‘Well, he remembered you, and Iain. Seemed put out that you lived so far away.’

‘Ooh!’ squeaked Meggie. ‘It’s not as if I don’t love Iain and Anna more than life itself, but it’s nice to know that the – the one-night stand – wasn’t just that, really. Because whatever Felicity and her mother may say about me, I’m not, nor ever was, a slut.’

‘They wouldn’t say that with me in the room,’ said Jenny. ‘Anyway, if ever you go down to London, I’m sure he’ll be very pleased to catch up with you.’

Meggie shivered with remembered pleasure. ‘It’s silly, I know, but since I’ve had Anna, I’ve felt dreadfully blobby and unglamorous. I’ve felt terribly motherly, and that’s what I am now, but it’s nice to remember when you could still pull.’

Jenny laughed, more merrily than she felt. ‘Anyway, he seemed quite impressed with the samples. Obviously, unless a client chooses to use it, he won’t order any.’

‘We must get a client to order it!’ declared Meggie. ‘Who do we know that’s rich?’

‘Well, I don’t know anyone, and although Lady Dalmain obviously does, anyone who is anyone, that is, I don’t suppose even she could dispatch them down to London to order a suit from a tailor he probably hasn’t heard of.’

‘I’ll have a think.’

‘Don’t tell me there’s someone else you slept with who might come in useful?’

Meggie threw her used teabag at her friend. ‘So, tell me, what are you going to wear?’

‘God knows! I haven’t had a chance to think about it. My navy-blue suit, I expect. What about you?’

‘I’m going to wear long, because I hardly ever have a chance to dress up and I’ve a skirt I can leave undone at the top.’

Jenny’s teeth caught at her lip. ‘Oh dear. I haven’t got anything long, and I don’t suppose there are any handy little dress shops round here likely to sell me anything, are there?’

Meggie shook her head. ‘Not unless you’re after something in tartan, no.’

‘And all the other women will be dressed up too? What will her ladyship wear?’

‘Going on past form, something black, with diamonds. You’ll have noticed, she has terrible dress sense, but fabulous jewellery.’

‘Diamonds eh? So I can’t go in my Marks and Spencer navy suit, then?’

‘Well, you could, I expect. But I thought you told me your boyfriend was the style police. He won’t like it.’

Jenny was just about to declare she didn’t give a
damn what Henry felt, when she remembered that however much she didn’t want it to be the case, Ross Grant-Dempsey was going to be there. ‘And the other women will dress up too?’

‘Absolutely. We all appreciate a chance to put on something skimpy.’

‘I hope they stoke up the fires, then. Don’t want anyone catching a chill.’

Meggie gave her a pitying look. ‘We all wear thermal underwear, sweetie. But I expect they will have good fires going, because her ladyship’s dress is low at the back. In-filled with black net. It’s a period piece, really. The men will all wear kilts. Iain looks heavenly in a kilt.’

As Jenny remembered, Ross did too. ‘Oh God! I’ve got enough to do without having to worry about what to wear. Couldn’t I just put on a black skirt and a white blouse and pretend I’m the hired help?’

‘No! Of course not! The Matriarch would order you about as if you really were! And who would Henry have as a partner?’

‘It’s a dinner party – surely partners aren’t really necessary?’

‘Jenny, you’re not dressing up as a maid, even if it is Henry’s secret fantasy. Why don’t you come upstairs and have a rummage through the bit of broom handle stuck on two poles I laughingly call my wardrobe. Before the baby, I was about your size.’

After saying goodbye to Meggie and Anna, clutching a polythene bag on a hanger and a pair of shoes, Jenny went back to Dalmain House. She wanted to tell Kirsty about the trip to London and, too weary to drive over to the mill, telephoned her instead.

Kirsty was cautious in her optimism, as was Jenny, but they both concluded that the trip had been a success of sorts.

‘The trouble is, with this bloody dinner party –’

‘Language, Jenny.’

‘Bloody was the expurgated version,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m not going to have time to write up a half-decent report.’

‘Well, you’ve told me most of it. I’ll write the report, and you can come in early and we can alter anything I’ve said wrong.’

‘You’re a star, Kirsty. Now, all we need is someone to order a suit to be made from one of our fabrics, and we’ll be made. They are so lovely. Alan Frazier was impressed; I could tell.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. Would a magazine article about our fabrics, the unusual fibres used, and such like, be of any use at all, do you think?’

‘Well, yes! Are you saying that’s a possibility?’

‘I have a niece. I might be able to ask her to do a piece. A very nice girl. A pity she moved to London.’

‘Actually, not a pity at all, if she could get an article published about Dalmain’s Designer Fabrics. Is she – I mean – I don’t want to appear rude – but is she – has she had articles published before?’

‘Oh yes. Her mother told me there was one in
Vogue,
just the other month.’

Jenny closed her eyes, glad Kirsty couldn’t see her. ‘If you could set that in motion, it would be wonderful. Why didn’t you mention this niece before?’

‘It didn’t occur to me she might be useful,’ said Kirsty huffily.

‘Sorry. I don’t suppose it would have occurred to me
either.’ Jenny sighed. ‘I’d better go, or Lady Dalmain will expect Dalmain Mills to pay her entire phone bill, and as she’s asking half of Scotland to a dinner party, it’s going to be a high one.’

After that, Jenny slid into bed, wearing all her clothes, and fell asleep.

When she got downstairs again, she found Henry and Lady Dalmain still discussing the dinner party.

‘We’ve decided that if we put both leaves in the table, we can all sit down together. I hate wandering round trying to juggle a plate and a glass, and I don’t want food ground into my carpet.’

‘So, how many will we be?’ asked Jenny.

‘About sixteen. We should be able to fit that many round, don’t you think, Henry?’

‘What about chairs?’ asked Jenny. ‘I mean, you can always fit the knives and forks in, but have you got narrow enough chairs?’

‘Oh, we’ve got plenty!’

‘You don’t think that trying to serve roast beef to sixteen people without staff might mean we all end up with it cold? Especially as you don’t like your plates warmed first.’

‘Then we’ll have it cold!’ Lady Dalmain was gleeful. ‘Cold roast beef and salad. Nothing nicer.’

‘In summer,’ said Jenny. ‘Not in winter.’ She could have added, ‘In an unheated dining room that would take days to defrost even if it was allowed to have heating in it.’ But didn’t.

‘Jenny,’ said Henry sternly, ‘I don’t think you should take it upon yourself to comment on Lady Dalmain’s menu.’

‘If I’m expected to be in charge of the cooking,’ she said firmly, ‘I expect to have some input into what we’re having. Is there someone local we could get in to help serve?’

‘Of course,’ said Lady Dalmain stiffly. ‘Mrs Sandison has already agreed to come in and wait at table.’

‘Who?’ asked Henry. ‘Oh, the cleaning lady.’

The dogs were barking and covering the first dinnerparty guests with hairs before Jenny reached her room. She stood with her back against the door for a moment, appreciating the coolness for the first time. She was still in her jeans.

‘This is the moment to climb out the window,’ she muttered, ‘and run to the hills. Then I won’t have to get changed, make myself presentable, and face all those people who’ve had plenty of time to get dressed.’

She moved to the mirror to size up the task before her and closed her eyes. In that quick glance she had observed her scarlet face and neck, her hair clinging to her forehead, in dire need of washing, and either this morning’s mascara, or terminal fatigue, smudging her eyes. It must have been tiredness – she surely hadn’t had time to put on make-up, had she? She opened her eyes and sighed. The morning was such a long time ago, how could she remember what she’d had time to do?

The whole day she had been preparing vegetables, making trifle, cleaning, arranging flowers and place settings, finding dishes, hiding cracks, matching china, resetting the table over and over again, and by now she no longer cared if the beef was the texture of bootleather,
if the potatoes squished rather than crunched, or if the gravy had lumps the size of peat hags in it. It hadn’t had lumps in it when she’d left it but, knowing her luck, they would have waited for her to stop whisking and go away before developing.