A Girl’s Guide to Kissing Frogs. Victoria Clayton
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her. ‘It’s been so lovely to see you again and I hope – I’m sure you’re going to be wonderfully happy.’
‘Of course I shall. Goodnight, darling. Promise you’ll come and meet Conrad as soon as he arrives?’
‘The minute I’m asked.’
‘It was a memorable evening, wasn’t it?’ I said to Rafe as we reached the bottom of the valley and started to climb the other side. ‘We shall none of us forget it.’
Evelyn, of course, had been the person most affected by Isobel’s bombshell. When Isobel had announced her engagement I had looked immediately at Evelyn’s face and seen it blanche. Several seconds of silence followed Isobel’s announcement, before the archdeacon said, ‘Well, well, Isobel. You have … ah-hem … surprised us.’
‘Certainly,’ said Mustard Crepe, who I had by then identified as the archdeacon’s wife. ‘Evelyn, my dear, how inscrutable you’ve been.’ This was generous, as it was obvious that Evelyn had been as surprised as the rest of us. ‘May we ask, who is the fortunate young man?’
I have never met anyone who did smiling rage as well as Evelyn. Her diamonds were flashing on her chest as she breathed fast. ‘I assure you, Fanny, I am as much in the dark as any of you. I suppose it must be Harry Cunningham … a charming boy, devoted to Isobel … Kingsley and Harry’s father were at school together—’
‘Quite wrong, Mummy.’ Isobel’s face was lit by excitement. ‘His name is Conrad Lerner.’
‘Conrad … Lerner.’ Evelyn mouthed the syllables as though she was eating bitter almonds.
‘Will someone explain what’s going on?’ Kingsley asked plaintively.
‘Isobel is telling us about the young man to whom she has become engaged.’ The archdeacon’s wife took charge of the situation as smoothly as though this was a meeting of the Mother’s Union which threatened to get out of hand. Her tone was emphatic, almost severe. ‘We are all delighted, naturally, but there seems to be some mystery.’
‘No mystery at all,’ said Isobel. ‘Conrad’s just the sort of man any girl might want to marry. He’s very clever and very nice and very, very rich.’
‘Conrad.’ Kingsley wrinkled his face in perplexity. ‘Conrad.’ He looked helpless. ‘Do I know him?’
‘No, Daddy. I met him in London three months ago. At a party. We spent a brilliant week together. We had the most enormous fun. Then he went back to Germany. We kept in touch, of course. A few days ago he rang up, asking me to marry him. I said yes. So now you know all about it.’ She looked triumphant but I saw that she was tense, anticipating attack from all sides.
‘But Isobel,’ Evelyn’s voice had more than a tinge of anger to it now. ‘Who exactly is this man? Who are his family? What is he doing in Germany if he has engaged himself to you?’
‘Goodness! So many questions!’ Isobel walked over to the drinks tray and poured herself a large brandy. ‘He’s in Germany because that’s where he lives when he isn’t in London or New York. He is German, you see. As to his family, I don’t believe he has any.’
‘But Isobel, my dear.’ The Archdeacon’s wife had taken over again seeing that Evelyn was having difficulty in ordering her thoughts. ‘Was that quite wise? To engage yourself to man without family, of whom you and your parents know nothing?’
‘Of course he must have some family,’ put in Sir Ibbertson. ‘Everyone has, be they never so humble.’
‘What I meant was, they’re all dead. His grandparents and all the rest of that generation died in concentration camps. And his mother and father were killed in a plane crash when he was eight. He was brought up by his uncle Charles who was the only relation he had left. He died last year so Conrad truly hasn’t any family. Sad, isn’t it?’ Isobel did not look in the least sorry, only defiant.
Evelyn closed her eyes.
‘Very sad,’ said a girl who had been standing on the outskirts of the group. Her hair was cropped into a short back and sides, like a schoolboy’s, and she wore an unbecoming brown dress with a halter neck that emphasized the squareness of her shoulders. All I knew of her so far was that her name was Bunty Lumbe. ‘He must be a very interesting person.’
I liked her for this attempt to lighten the encircling gloom of disapproval, but Isobel rounded on her.
‘Interesting? I hate that sort of morbid curiosity that finds people interesting just because they’ve had awful things happen to them.’
Bunty looked alarmed. ‘I didn’t mean … all I meant was … I don’t think I’ve ever met a German.’
‘Never been able to take to them, you know, not since the last shemozzle.’ Kingsley had been something, a major perhaps or a colonel, in the last war. ‘Lost a lot of damned fine men. But I suppose the same’s true for them.’
‘Conrad is a Jew, Daddy.’ Isobel’s tone was one of exaggerated patience. ‘His people were on the side you were fighting for.’
‘Does he speak English?’ asked the archdeacon.
‘A smattering. I shall learn Yiddish. Oy, oy! Nach a mool!’ She grinned.
The archdeacon and his wife exchanged glances of absolute horror and everyone else looked grave, as though Isobel had said she was going to have to live in a ghetto and eat rats.
‘What am I thinking of?’ Evelyn roused herself as if from a trance. She assumed an air of grim resolution. ‘Ring for Spendlove someone. We must have some champagne. A toast to Isobel and –’ she gritted her teeth – ‘Conrad.’
‘I do admire your mother,’ I said to Rafe as we approached the bottom of our drive. ‘Don’t slow down for the bend if you can help it. If there’s ice you have to take it at a run or you can’t get all the way up the drive.’ I shut my eyes and held on to the door handle in case we went over the edge into the river. I had read somewhere recently that, contrary to received opinion, you must get out as fast as you can and not wait for the car to fill with water. Would my cast weigh me down like divers’ leaded boots? Don’t scream … go on talking … pretend it’s all right … pretend you aren’t going to die … ‘It must have been a tremendous shock for her – not having met this man – having it sprung on her in front of all those people.’ I felt the wheels spinning, imagined us sliding sideways down … down … ‘I expect they’ll like him very much,’ I heard my voice rise to a squeak, ‘… once they get to know him.’
‘It’s all right. Just a little skid. We’re quite safe. And it seems to have silenced Buster.’
Buster had his paws on the back of my seat and was panting down my neck. The warmth of his breath was comforting.
‘Of course you don’t mean that,’ Rafe continued. ‘About my parents liking Conrad. Xenophobia is canon law at Shottestone. I begged her to wait until we’d all met him before agreeing to marry him, but you know how impulsive she is. She said she was the one who was going to live with him and it didn’t matter what the rest of us thought. Which is nonsense, of course. One can hardly avoid seeing a great deal of one’s in-laws.’
It seemed Rafe was the only person Isobel had discussed her engagement with. This did not surprise me. She had always set great store by her brother’s opinion. Worshipping at the same altar ought to have brought us closer together as children, but I think in those days she had resented me as a coreligionist in case I drew Rafe’s attention away from her. Not that I ever did.
‘It will be nice for Isobel to have a lot of money.’
‘You shock me, Marigold! What a mercenary pair you are!’
After everyone else had gone home, Isobel had dwelt for some time on the considerable riches of her betrothed.
I hastened to explain myself. ‘I didn’t mean it was the