The Vintage Girl (20 page)

“Like you do now?” she sniped back.

I stopped spinning and came to a sudden halt by a patch of spiky fern poking through the snow. “Like I—what?”

“I’m sorry,” said Alice. “But don’t lecture me about bailing out on relationships when you’re the one who only has crushes on men you can’t have.”

“I—”

“Fraser. Max. David Tennant. Don Draper in
Mad Men
who
doesn’t even exist
, Evie! Men you can slot into your ridiculous period-costume daydreams where everyone says ‘Goodness!’ and uses Brylcreem. You fixate on men who won’t ever ask you to live in the real world. That’s far more of a problem, if you ask me. That and cramming your flat full of other people’s junk instead of getting your own bloody life.”

It felt as if she’d thrown a glass of ice water over me. I stared sightlessly at the rabbit prints looping across the path. The agonizing thing was, I knew she was right, in her brutal, neat-and-tidy way.

“You call me a control freak,” she went on remorselessly, “but if you ask me, you’re the ultimate control freak.”

“At least I don’t make my boyfriends sterilize their toothbrushes if they leave them in my flat.”

“Ha!” barked Alice. “As if you have men staying overnight! They can’t get past the pile of moth-eaten bears on your bed. And if that’s not Freudian, I don’t know what is!”

My throat was hot and tight, as if something was trying to force itself out. “I just don’t want to be like Mum and Dad!” I wailed, so loud three pheasants launched themselves out of the tree next to me.

“Well, neither do I!” Alice bellowed back. “I’m bloody terrified of marrying Fraser and ending up with beanbag TV dinner trays! In the middle of nowhere! Talking about slacks we like in the Lands’ End catalogue!”

We were both quiet. I could hear the traffic in the background at her end; there was no sound in the forest for her to hear at mine. The wildlife had sensibly gone to ground.

I honestly didn’t know what I could say next; it was the most honest conversation we’d ever had and I couldn’t even see her face.

“Alice, where are you?” I asked. “Are you on your own?”

“The reason I am too scared to come up there this weekend is that I’m afraid Fraser will propose,” said Alice haltingly. “Everyone will be watching—his parents, his friends, everyone. I do love him, you have to believe that, but … I’m scared.”

The crack in her voice made me want to hug her and shake her at the same time.

“You’re not scared of anything,” I said. “Why are you scared of someone loving you so much he’s prepared to spend the rest of his life with you?”

“Because Fraser deserves someone who can
guarantee
he’ll be happy. I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Well, who can?”

“Someone who comes from the same sort of world as him. Someone who knows what to do with a pheasant. Someone who can dance, and bring up happy children with mucky faces, and not care if the dog licks them clean.”

“Would you believe me if I told you that the most romantic story I’ve ever heard was about a pampered American and a Scottish bachelor who—”

“Stop it. You’re making it up.” Alice heaved a sigh. “It’s not like I could have got there anyway, is it? Didn’t you say the roads are closed?”

“If you loved him, you’d find a way to get here. He would for you.” I stopped, visualizing Fraser driving through snow and ice (admittedly in a horse and cart), doing anything for Alice because he loved her. How long had I tried to imagine a man like that into existence? And failed?

“Fraser is divine and real. If you can’t see that, then, yeah, maybe you don’t deserve him.”

“Evie—”

I couldn’t talk to her anymore. I was too churned-up and cross. And jealous.

“I’ve got to go. I need to talk to Max. Believe it or not, I do have other things to worry about, like my job. And what I’m going to say to all these very nice people to explain why you’re too rude to be here.”

“Call me later, after fiveish—”

“I’ll call you when I can.” I hung up and turned to set off again, but my phone rang again.

“I’ve got a buyer, and better than that, guess what?”

It was Max.
Great.

“What?” I said heavily. “I’m not in the mood for guessing.”

“I’ve got a TV crew! From the BBC. Remember that runner who booked Leonard Slaine for that terrible ‘Sell your granny for cash’ program?” Max actually sounded as if he’d had his teeth whitened. He was schlurring schlightly. “Well, he reckons he can get a team together, on the cheap obviously, to follow me as I find the last undiscovered Chippendale in England. He’s got a title already:
Max Uncovers the Chippendales!
Or something like that.”

I closed my eyes. Max’s dream was to break into the closed circle of TV antiques experts. This was an even bigger deal for him than the money. Wheels were being set in motion now, and I knew I should be thrilled, but somehow I wasn’t.

“So you scuttle back there and give McAndrew senior the glad tidings,” Max went on starrily. “Tell him to settle back and prepare for fame and fortune.”

*

I headed back to the house, strange emotions swilling round me.

It was too much to deal with in one go. Like a particularly toxic party punch of stress—Alice and Fraser, Robert, the table, the looming financial peril of the house, topped off with my own guilty excitement at a real ball—it was making me feel nauseous.

I needed to sit down with Violet’s notebooks and just take stock, I told myself. Tune back in to my instincts. Tune back in to the house.

Inside, the hall was a bustling hive of activity, but I pretended to be on an errand and trotted up the sweeping staircase.

When I got to the top, I was struck with a sudden urge to see Violet’s beautiful ballroom, before it was filled with dancers.

The clamor downstairs faded away and the velvety silence of the upper floors descended as I turned down the landing toward the ballroom, now helpfully marked with a wooden sign. I pushed open the double doors and held my breath, letting the atmosphere seep into me as I walked slowly across the empty room, drinking in the details greedily.

It was oak-paneled around the five tall windows, each offering a long view of the snow-covered drive. Huge mirrors hung from chains to reflect the candlelight from spidery wall sconces, perfect for stealing glances and checking out rivals, and a row of gold-painted chairs had been set up along the long wall. At the far end of the room was a magnificent organ, its fluted pipes reaching up to the lofty ceiling, garlanded with—yes, feathers and violets, crowned with an eagle. There was no other furniture, just the meticulous slats of the polished floorboards. And the lingering tremors of a thousand memories, triumphs, heartbreaks, surprises, rivalries …

My spine elongated as if I were crossing the floor in a corseted ballgown with a diamond tiara balanced in my elaborate hairdo. I couldn’t help it. The air was full of ghosts, like the tiny fragments of light that sparkled from the crystal chandelier above me, dancing on the polished floorboards.

I closed my eyes and wished I could open them again and be at one of Violet’s glory-days balls, when she had American dollars to lavish on entertaining, and her Ranald to adore, and no clouds on her newlywed horizon. I ached to meet her—she seemed so close all the time, yet tantalizingly distant.

“Believe it or not, this is my favorite room in the house,” said a voice from the door.

I jumped.

I saw Robert reflected in the mirror opposite. He was standing in the doorframe, his arms crossed, watching me. I wondered, embarrassed, how long he’d been there.

“Why’s that? Because there’s nothing in here?” I pretended I’d been looking at the carved panel opposite, and turned round as casually as I could.

“Exactly. I love it because there’s never anything in it.” His shoes echoed as he walked over, and he raised a hand toward a carved cherub gamboling to a panpipe. “It is what it is. The proportions, the space … it’s designed for its purpose. Which is dancing.”

“Which you don’t like,” I reminded him.

Robert gave me a funny look. “I didn’t say that.”

“You did.”

“I said I wasn’t keen on the
ball
.”

“That’s not the impression you’ve given
me
,” I started, but my brain abruptly crashed with an overload of too many other thoughts, heightened by the still yet charged atmosphere—Robert’s crooked mouth, the flash of skin under the neck of his T-shirt, the owlish way he was looking at me, the sudden crackle of connection filling the space between us in this enormous room. I had to make myself look away.

“I bet it’s alive when everyone’s packed in.” My hands were itching to touch something, so I trailed my fingers along the petals of a carved violet. “I think anyone could dance better in here,” I added. “It feels … as if it’s waiting.”

“This is the only room that has any real meaning to me,” he said. “Not those cases of prehistoric flints or Italian marbles. Violet McAndrew created this room because she loved to dance, and people still dance here now.”

I looked up—his dark eyes were watching me, his lips slightly parted. I wondered how like Ranald he was, what he would look like in uniform, with a mustache. I imagined all the McAndrew men, whizzing backward through time in a collage of faces, the eyes staying the same.

“Course, it could just be the snow,” he went on. “It is kind of spooky.”

I stepped over to the stone windowsill and gazed out at the fairy-tale landscape stretching down the drive. The ballroom had a full panorama of the snow-blanketed park rolling away toward the woods, broken only by faint footsteps across the verandah toward the steps. The trees glittered in the last rays of wintry afternoon sun, which flooded the ballroom with a spectral bluish light. I could see the dust motes flicker in the air like tiny ghosts.

It was so quiet I could hear Robert breathing, and for a dizzying second, it felt as if we were the only people in the whole house. And even though my back was turned to him, I knew exactly how far away from me he was.

“There is a rather different atmosphere in here today,” he added, at the same time that I said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as beautiful as this.”

I turned; Robert was close—exactly where I’d known he was—and our eyes met. I felt as if he was reading all the confused thoughts churning round in my head, and I blushed.

“You know, you were very wrong the other night, when you thought I expected to you mess up,” he said. “I actually think you’ve learned it all amazingly fast. Has Fraser managed to teach you the proper fast spin all the girls do up here?”

“God, no,” I said. “I’ve got the patterns of the reels in my head, that’s all fine, but I can’t make the spin work. I want to, because it looks amazing, but I keep locking up. I don’t know what happens, my mind’s telling me one thing, and my limbs just go—”

“We’ve plenty of room here,” he said. “Want to give it another try?”

“Oh, um, no, it’s fine …” My voice echoed in the empty ballroom, bouncing off the high ceiling.

What was I saying? Of course I wanted to, any excuse to feel his hands in mine. But I had a horrible feeling it would be better in my imagination, where there was less chance of me falling over and possibly injuring him to boot.

“The lack of an audience might help,” he suggested.

“Okay,” I said, more matter-of-factly than I felt. “Show me what to do.” I held out my hands.

“Other way up,” said Robert. “Here, look.” He took hold of my wrists, positioned them the correct way, and clasped my hands in his, wrapping his fingers round mine.

I shivered, and hoped he couldn’t feel it. We’d done this before, but this felt different. More deliberate, more intimate.

“Now, don’t
think
, just feel what I’m trying to do with you,” he said firmly. “Relax. Now, I’m turning you round …”

His hands tightened, and he raised his own arms so I had no choice but to rotate slowly toward his body.

“And now I’m going to give you an extra spin, so go with it, that’s it, just keep going round, and because I’m a helpful sort of chap, I’m going to position you right in front of the next man in the set …”

All the while he was speaking, Robert was purposefully turning me on the spot, and my feet were obediently following. His voice sounded calm, but in the silence of the room, I could hear his breathing speeding up.

Meanwhile, my own heart was banging so loud in my chest it might as well have had amplifiers.

“… and there you are.” Robert released me with a little push, and I stumbled slightly, and found myself staring at the fireplace, piled with unlit logs and pinecones. “Ready to dance with Fraser.”

I’d done it. No lockup, no embarrassing yelp from my partner. It had been so neat and quick and … satisfying.

“When did you learn how to do that?” I asked. “Growing up in Wimbledon and all.”

“Oh, once a Scot, you know. I went to a few Highland balls at college, once I learned just what an aphrodisiac a good reel can be. And I had plenty of offers of practice.” He grinned at me. “From ladies who liked to be spun so fast they lost their breath.”

I caught sight of my own face in one of the mirrors lining the walls: I looked stunned. In a good way.

“Want to try that one more time?” he asked. “Make sure it wasn’t a fluke?”

My stomach bubbled with excitement, but I kept my voice cool. “Practice makes perfect.”

I held out my hands, the right way up, and he grabbed me again. He spun me faster this time, turning me round and inside out, not letting go as soon as he had before.

“Just trust me,” he called out as I staggered, not sure where I was. “You’ve got to go with it, no point trying to second-guess. Let the man be in charge. Should appeal to your costume-drama tendencies.”

“I think I’m starting to get the hang of this,” I said as he caught me again and pulled me into another one.

“I think you are too,” said Robert. He paused, and we stared at each other, our faces still quite close together. His eyes burned into mine.

“One more go? Fast as you like?” I raised my hands and risked a flirty wink. “So fast I lose my breath?”

But instead of grabbing my wrists to spin me, Robert scooped one arm round my waist and lifted my right hand in the air.

“There’s more to the ball than just reeling, you know,” he said, setting off in a dizzying circle. “There’s breaks for waltzing too.”

“Stop! I’ve done waltzing, this is going to end in tears!” I protested, laughing, but he kept moving, and my feet somehow skittered round between his.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t imagined yourself in a proper ball situation?” he went on. “Crinoline? Tiara? ‘The Blue Danube’?”

“I have!” I protested. Our bodies were pressed close together now, properly close, not the quick hand-grip and touch of the reeling. “But I saw myself on the side, watching from behind my fan.”

“You didn’t see yourself dancing?” His eyes stayed on mine, and his arm tightened around my waist, guiding me. “That’s very sad.”

“No, it’s perfectly reasonable—I can’t dance!”

“What are you doing now, then?”

“
I’m
not doing anything!”

Robert stopped in a long dust-strewn shaft of snow-white light. My feet took a second to catch up, and skidded my body into his. Neither of us moved away.

I could feel his heart beating through the thin jersey, the pulse of his blood in his neck where my hand rested. We were both completely still, afraid to move. He held me, one arm curled round my waist, the other folding my hand into his shoulder, and my breath shuddered in my throat. He was so close I could smell his skin, and it was making me feel weak with desire.

“Evie,” he began, his voice low. “I looked at those postcards again, and it made me realize that—”

“Evie? Evie, are you up here?” A voice broke the silence. A very carrying voice.

Catriona.

I sprang out of Robert’s grasp as her kitten heels snapped down the corridor outside.

“In the ballroom,” I called out, making my way to the door.

“I need to talk to you,” Robert started, but I was already pulling the doors open, not wanting her to think we were hiding.

“There you are!” Catriona had come straight from the car; there was still snow dusting her full-length mac, and she was clutching a sports bag. She looked like Darth Vader’s hockey coach.

“You went home to get the dresses? That’s
incredibly
kind of you,” I said, in a voice that didn’t really sound like mine. “I know how
terribly
busy you are today.”

God, I sounded like her. I always did impressions of the people I was talking to when I was nervous.

“It’s my pleasure— Oh,” she said in a sharp voice, “there you are, Robbie. We’ve all been looking for you. I thought you’d skipped the country.”

“Nope, I had a call from work,” he said. “I couldn’t tell them to wait until I’d put out three hundred gold chairs, believe it or not.”

“Yes, well, I was about to send the ladies in here to start the decoration.” She thrust the bag at me. “There should be something there that’ll fit. Have a try-on, and if you need any alterations, I’m sure Sheila will stitch you up. Do remember, though,” she added meaningfully, “the important thing is to be
comfortable
at these dances, not
fashionable
.”

“At least you know they’ll be preapproved by the dress-code enforcers,” said Robert, deadpan, his hands deep in his pockets.

“Oh, you!” Catriona swatted him, but her eyes were steely. “Do you know what Mummy found? In our attic?”

“Your dad?”

“No! Granddad’s sporran! The one he wore at the Highland Games when he danced with the Queen Mother.” She turned to me. “My paternal grandfather came from a very old Orkadian family. Much older than the McAndrews. Although obviously I don’t want to rub Robbie’s nose in it, ha-ha! But it would make Mummy so happy if you could wear it over your kilt, Rob.”

“Well, as I keep telling Evie, I’m not into antiques!” he said in the same light but steely tone. “Or kilts.”

Catriona pulled a
Men!
face at me, and I didn’t know what face to pull in return. I settled for a nervous/amused one that I could see, from the mirrors, just made me look stoned.

The light outside had shifted, and abruptly the room felt strange, as if the friendly dancing ghosts had vanished with the sunlight. It was colder, less welcoming. The ballroom belonged to Catriona and Robert, the future hosts, not me, crashing the party in my borrowed dress to rake up the past.